Design and fabrication of near-field microscope using solid immersion lens

SIL (solid immersion lens) has a very high refractive index (n=1.8 - 3.5) and small size. SIL microscope is an advanced microscope as compared with conventional microscope. SIL microscope uses the evanescent field at the flat bottom surface of SIL ( it’s evanescent coupling effect to the medium at the flat bottom of SIL) , so we can obtain a near-field image of specimen beneath the SIL. SIL plays a important role to enlarge the effective N.A.(as secondary-lens) and we can obtain a small spot at most and it is possible to measure a small specimen which has sub-wavelength line pattern. We can use also it’s principle to optical data storage device which is NFR ( near-field recording ). In this paper, we designed and made a SIL microscope using SIL (diameter = 1mm , refractive index n=1.83 ). Th rough the real experiment, we obtained the scanned-surface image of 700nm and 300nm standard specimens using SIL effect (compared with it’s SEM scanning picture) and analyzed the result and error of image and system. According to this paper we can assure the capability of SIL microscope and possibility of the development of high-area density, large-capacity data storage device.