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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Assembly, Tuning and Use of an Apertureless Near Field Infrared Microscope for Protein Imaging
Published on: November 25, 2009
Cloaked near-field scanning optical microscope tip for noninvasive near-field imaging
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
Abstract:
Near-field imaging is a well-established technique in biomedical measurements, since closer to the detail of interest it is possible to resolve subwavelength details otherwise unresolved by regular lenses. A near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) tip may indeed overcome the resolution limits of far-field optics, but its proximity inherently perturbs the measurement. Here, we apply the recent concept of a "cloaked sensor" to an NSOM device in collection mode, showing theoretically how a proper plasmonic cover applied to an NSOM tip may drastically improve its overall measurement capabilities.
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