Near-field thermal imaging of nanostructured surfaces

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that near-field scanning thermal microscopy can be used for nanoscale imaging of surface structures by detecting local electromagnetic mode densities, supported by a perturbative theoretical approach.

Contribution

It introduces a method to image nanostructured surfaces using near-field thermal microscopy, with a theoretical model explaining the underlying detection mechanism.

Findings

Nanoscale imaging of surface structures is feasible with near-field thermal microscopy.

Theoretical approach models the surface structure's effect perturbatively.

Detection of local electromagnetic modes enables surface characterization.

Abstract

We show that a near-field scanning thermal microscope, which essentially detects the local density of states of the thermally excited electromagnetic modes at nanometer distances from some material, can be employed for nanoscale imaging of structures on that material's surface. This finding is explained theoretically by an approach which treats the surface structure perturbatively.