Optical imaging of metallic and semiconductor nanostructures at sub wavelength regime

TL;DR

This paper discusses optical imaging techniques like NSOM for visualizing metallic and semiconductor nanostructures at sub-wavelength scales, highlighting plasmon resonance effects and defect-related electronic transitions.

Contribution

It provides insights into the application of NSOM for imaging nanostructures and analyzes the effects of plasmon resonance and defect states on imaging results.

Findings

Localized surface plasmon resonance affects NSOM images of Au nanoparticles.

Electronic transitions from defect states influence semiconductor nanowire imaging.

NSOM effectively reveals intrinsic properties of nanostructures at sub-wavelength scales.

Abstract

The near field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM) is not only a tool for imaging of objects in the sub wavelength limit but also a prominent characteristic tool for understanding the intrinsic properties of the nanostructures. The effect of strong localized surface plasmon resonance absorption of excitation laser in the NSOM images for Au nanoparticles is observed. The role of electronic transitions from different native defect related energy states of AlGaN are also discussed in understanding the NSOM images for the semiconductor nanowire.