Super-resolution microscopy by dielectric microcylinders

It is shown that super-resolution microscopy can be performed by using dielectric microcylinders. We used silica (n ~ 1.46) optical fibers, chemically etched down to ~ 7 μm diameter, placed on top of a commercial Blu-ray^® disk. We clearly resolved one-dimensional arrays of 200 nm width stripes separated by 100 nm width grooves. Potential applications of this imaging technique include microfluidics and nanophotonics applications.