scanning near-field optical microscopy (snom) is a member of scanning probe microscopes (spms) family which enables nanostructure investigation of the surfaces on a wide range of materials. in fact, snom combines the spm technology to the optical microscopy and in this way provide a powerful tool to study nano-structures with very high spatial resolution. in this paper, a qualified overview of ...

In recent years, tremendous efforts have been devoted to a class of novel metamaterials, left-handed materials (LHMs), which reverse the behavior of many fundamental electromagnetic properties associated with materials. In this investigation, we briefly discuss the application of LHMs in enhancing photon tunneling, which is used in thermophotovoltaic devices and scanning photon-tunneling micros...

The photon emission yield observed in scanning tunneling microscopy ~STM! measurements of Au hemispheroid-decorated thin films is used to elucidate the interaction of tunneling electrons with local surface plasmon modes. The photon emission probability is found to depend on the surface feature size. The agreement of a model calculation with the experimental results demonstrates that inelastic e...

The STM-electroluminescence technique is shown to be a valuable tool for characterizing optoelectronic properties and understanding structure-function relationships in heterogeneous or disordered materials on nanometer length scales. The intensity of photon emission induced by tunneling electrons from rough Au films is found to depend on the surface feature size. This size-dependent photon emis...