Scanning near-field infrared microscopy based on tapered silver-halide probes

The development of scanning near-field infrared microscopes (SNIM) based on fiberoptic silver-halide probes was studied. The feasibility of using these probes in a SNIM system were demonstrated by imaging of a subwavelength test pattern. The knife-edge technique was used to perform spatial characterization of the radiation distribution emitted from these probes. These probes possess broad range of spectral transmission in the mid-infrared (IR) that proved very useful in high spatial resolution spectroscopy.