HighRI Optics Inc.

Near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) has become one of the most crucial and powerful techniques to characterize the chemical, physical, and biochemical properties of materials with nanometer-scale resolution in real-time. A key element for any NSOM systems that combine optical spectroscopy with scanning probe microscopy is the actual probe itself. An ideal NSOM probe provides a strong local electromagnetic field enhancement, efficient far-field to near- field coupling, nanoscale spatial resolution, background-free operation, and broadband photon-plasmon coupling to enable high spatial and temporal resolution. One of the most exciting optical probe architectures based on an optical transformer, “campanile,” was recently developed and has been successfully used for multidimensional spectroscopic imaging of nanostructures with nanoscale resolution, providing insights into novel optoelectronic process1. However, making such probes requires both the expertise and the facility, and reproducibility is a significant issue. The economic production of reasonable volumes of such probes is not possible. There is a critical need for the development of optical tip technology to yield high-performance and reliable near-field probes and to become available to the broader user community.  The realization of such probes would impact nanoscale research at the same level that atomic force microscopes did when paving the way to modern nanoscale science.  
We present a wafer-scale realization of Campanile near-field scanning optical probes fabricated on an AFM platform. Figure 1 illustrates a 2D sketch and a scanning electron micrograph (SEM) image of an optical transformer on a cantilever.  The figure shows the Boron Nitride flake sample and its topographical image taken by the Campanile AFM probe. Optical measurement results show a promising sign of probes’ functionality with a strong polarization dependence response, which is a tell-a-tale sing of a campanile. This work paves the way for low cost and volume manufacturing of near-field probes suitable for high-resolution hyperspectral imaging.

Biography:

Adam Legacy is a photonic engineer at HighRI Optics Inc. in Berkeley, California. He has been working on micro-nano devices for over 13 years. He has physics B.Sc, optics M.Sc, and electronics Ph.D. degrees. His research interests are nanoscale devices and systems for electronic, photonic, and plasmonic applications in bio/chemical sensing-imaging, millimeter-wave, and terahertz communication-imaging, on-chip spectrometers, hybrid optical AFM imaging, quantum optics, and nonlinear photonics. He is currently developing high-resolution hybrid optical AFM probes and fiber photonic devices.