This course is an introduction to the underlying phenomenology and the potential applications of near-field optics. The objective is that students become familiar with specific phenomena associated with confining optical waves in subwavelength regions and with using light to locate, identify, and manipulate structures on nanometer scales. The course covers a spectrum of developing optical technologies for applications in material sciences, photonics, imaging, chemistry, and biology.

Prerequisites

• Graduate standing

Topics

1. Evanescent fields
   • Nonradiating sources and fields
   • Concept of near-field/ types/decay laws / generalities
   • Polarization
   • Energy flow
   • Heisenberg uncertainty principle - superresolution
   • Lateral waves
   • Goos-Hanchen / absorption
   • Tunneling: plane wave & beams
2. Dipole-dipole interaction
   • Dipole radiation, Polarization
   • Spatial and temporal properties
   • Resolution
   • Subwavelength apertures: magnetic dipole / coupling
3. Self-consistent theory
   • EM scattering, field susceptibility
   • Green’s function approach, Dyson Eq.
   • Local density of states
   • Local field enhancement

1. Imaging
   • Near-field detection
   • Image formation and reciprocity
   • Transfer function
   • Diffraction and near field
   • Topography
2. Instrumentation
   • NSOM principle,
   • NSOM probe modeling
   • NSOM operation modes
   • Frustrated TIR
   • Optical waveguide sensors
3. Sensing of properties:
   • Physical
   • Chemical
   • Biological
4. Other applications
   • Diagnostic of photonic structures
   • Optical manipulation in near-field
   • Lithography