Near-field scanning optical microscopy studies of thin film surfaces and interfaces

In this article, the results of the modeling of topography related artifacts appearing in near-field scanning optical microscopy measurements are presented. The results obtained for near-field scanning optical microscope operation in reflection mode with off-axis far field detector position are compared with experimental results. It is shown that the chosen numerical method – Finite Difference in Time Domain method (FDTD) – can be used for efficient modeling of main topography related artifact. It is also seen that the far field detector position can have large influence on the resulting reflection mode optical images.