Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T10:55:05.949Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

What Do we Really See? Resolution in Near-Field Optical Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

M.S. Isaacson
M.S. Isaacson*
Affiliation:
School of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York14853
Get access

Extract

Six years ago there was a symposium held at the 1991 EMS A meeting to discuss the issue of “Resolution in the Microscope”.1 In this paper, we will look at resolution in near-field imaging, a blossoming field, and see whether any of our concepts have changed.

It has been only within the last decade that the concept of super-resolution microscopy in the near field has been vigorously pursued and experimentally demonstrated. (For reviews on the subject, the reader is referred to the proceedings of the second and third international conferences on near field optics.) However, as in most areas of microscopy, the idea is not new, but rather rediscovered after decades of dormancy.

The idea of optical resolution unhindered by far-field diffraction limitations was conceived more than a half-century ago by E.H. Synge4 in a paper entitled “A Suggested Method for Extending Microscopy Resolution into the Ultra-Microscope Regime”.

Type
The Limits of Image Resolution: Seeing is Believing
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 3 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '97, Microscopy Society of America 55th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 31st Annual Meeting, Histochemical Society 48th Annual Meeting, Cleveland, Ohio, August 10-14, 1997 , August 1997 , pp. 1183 - 1184
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Sarikaya, M., ed. “Resolution in the Microscope”, Ultramicroscopy 47(1-3 ) (1992) 1–306.10.1016/0304-3991(92)90181-ICrossRefGoogle Scholar
2.Isaacson, M., ed., “Near Field Optics”, Ultramicroscopy 57(2-3) (1995) 1–322.Google Scholar
3.Paesler, M. and Van Hülst, N., “Near Field Optics and Related Techniques”, Ultramicroscopy 61(1-4) (1995) 1–304.Google Scholar
4.Synge, E.H., Phil. Mag. 6 (1928) 356.10.1080/14786440808564615CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.O’Keefe, J.A., J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 46(5) (1956) 510.10.1364/JOSA.46.000359CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6.Ash, E.A. and Nicholls, G., Nature 237 (1972) 510.10.1038/237510a0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Isaacson, M., et al., Ultramicroscopy 47 (1992) 15.10.1016/0304-3991(92)90182-JCrossRefGoogle Scholar
8.Cline, J.and Isaacson, M., Appl. Optics 34(22) (1995) 4869.10.1364/AO.34.004869CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9. The author thanks the organizers of this symposium for giving him the opportunity to reflect on these issues.Google Scholar