Relationship between scattered intensity and separation for particles in an evanescent field

We describe measurements of the scattering of visible light from an evanescent field by both spherical particles (R = 1-10 mum) that are glued to atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers, and by sharp tips (R < 60 nm) that were incorporated onto the cantilevers during manufacture. The evanescent wave was generated at the interface between a flat plate and an aqueous solution, and an atomic force microscope was used to accurately control the separation, h, between the particle and the flat plate. We find that, for sharp tips, the intensity of scattered light decays exponentially with separation between the tip and the plate all the way down to h approximately 0. The measured decay length of scattered intensity, delta, is the same as the theoretical decay length of the evanescent intensity in the absence of the sharp tip. For borosilicate particles, (R = 1-10 mum), the scattering also decays exponentially with separation at large separations. However, when the separation is less than roughly 3delta, the measured scattering intensity is smaller in magnitude than that which would be predicted by extrapolating the exponential decay observed at large separations. For these particles, the scattering approximately fits the sum of two exponentials. The magnitude of the deviation from exponential at contact was roughly 10-15% for R = 1 mum particles and about 30% for larger particles and is larger for s-polarized light. Preliminary experiments on polystyrene particles shows that the scattering is also smaller than exponential at small separations but that the deviation from exponential is larger for p-polarized light. In evanescent wave AFM (EW-AFM) the scattering-separation can be calibrated for situations where the scattering is not exponential. We discuss possible errors that could be introduced by assuming that exponential decay of scattering continues down to h = 0.