Sub-surface Microscopy System Based on Solid Immersion Lens

The general model of a microscopy system is composed of three components: focusing of incident light, interaction of the incident light with the sample, and imaging of the scattered light. Although each component of a microscopy system influences the resolution of the microscopy system, only a few papers have reported a general model of a microscopy system in the literature. Such a model of a microscope system without a SIL has been studied by Török [1]. In order to understand a complete SIL microscopy system, we propose a general model for describing and simulating the process and behavior of imaging. In our model, we use the vectorial theory to treat the first (i.e., focusing) [2, 3] and third (i.e. imaging) components [4] of the SIL microscopy system. We consider the second part, i.e., the interaction light with the sample, as a link between the first and third part of the SIL microscopy system. Numerical methods such as the method of moments (MOM) [5] and the coupled dipole method (CDM) [6] are employed to obtain the induced current distribution in the focal plane. In this general model of the SIL microscopy system, each part can be treated individually. Therefore, it is easy to simulate the SIL microscopy system and obtain the effect on imaging of changing components such as the polarization of the incident light, or various structures in the focal plane, or the numerical aperture of the system. We also show the differences between the whole system and a subsystem on the resolution of the SIL microscopy system. Indeed the resolution of the whole system is of more practical importance than the resolution due to each subsystem considered independently. Numerical simulations are provided to justify the correctness and utility of this model and several useful insights are provided.