Long-life plastic optical fiber probes for scanning near-field optical microscope

Nowadays, sharpened glass fiber - made probes attached to a quartz tuning fork (TF) and exploiting the shear force - based feedback are by far the most popular in the field of SNOM. These probes are expensive, very fragile and their fabrication is difficult, hard to control and in many cases a hazardous process. Here we are presenting the first SNOM probes made from plastic optical fibers with a small, submicron size, core diameter. The sharp tips were prepared by chemical etching of the fibers in dichloromethane - ethyl acetate solution, and the probes were prepared by proper gluing of sharpened fibers onto the TF. These probes demonstrate excellent performance in both topographical and optical channels after intense use.