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Chen L W, Zhou Y, Wu M X, Hong M H. Remote-mode microsphere nano-imaging: new boundaries for optical microscopes. Opto-Electron Adv 1, 170001 (2018). doi: 10.29026/oea.2018.170001
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Remote-mode microsphere nano-imaging: new boundaries for optical microscopes
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Abstract
Optical microscope is one of the most popular characterization techniques for general purposes in many fields. It is distinguished from the vacuum or tip-based imaging techniques for its flexibility, low cost, and fast speed. However, its resolution limits the functionality of current optical imaging performance. While microspheres have been demonstrated for improving the observation power of optical microscope, they are directly deposited on the sample surface and thus the applications are greatly limited. We develop a remote-mode microsphere nano-imaging platform which can scan freely and in real-time across the sample surfaces. It greatly increases the observation power and successfully characterizes various practical samples with the smallest feature size down to 23 nm. This method offers many unique advantages, such as enabling the detection to be non-invasive, dynamic, real-time, and label-free, as well as leading to more functionalities in ambient air and liquid environments, which extends the nano-scale observation power to a broad scope in our life.-
Keywords:
- nano-imaging /
- label-free /
- microscopy
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References
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Chen L W, Zhou Y, Wu M X, Hong M H. Remote-mode microsphere nano-imaging: new boundaries for optical microscopes. Opto-Electron Adv 1, 170001 (2018). doi: 10.29026/oea.2018.170001
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Figure 1.
(a) Schematic diagram of the remote mode optical microsphere setup. (b) Mechanism to illustrate the enlarged virtual image by the microsphere. (c) Optical image captured by this system (Sample: semiconductor testing sample; scale bar: 10 μm; imaged by a 20 μm silica microsphere compiled to an oil-immersion optical microscope with a 100× objective lens, NA=1.4). Inset: SEM image (scale bar: 1 μm).
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Figure 2.
(a) Schematic of the design of the universal lens adaptor for the microsphere (silica microsphere with 400 μm diameter attached on a 20× objective lens. Characterization was done in ambient air and distance between the onion cell and the microsphere is ~65 μm, with white light illumination). (b) Integrated image of onion cells (scale bar: 20 μm). (c) Optical image of the universal sample adaptor after integration. (d) Comparison of the optical images by three optical lenses: the 20× objective lens (left, scale bar: 20 μm); 20× objective lens with the microsphere (middle, which is our nanoscope design, scale bar: 8 μm); and 50× objective lens (right, scale bar: 8 μm).
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Figure 3.
(a~c) Imaging of nano-dot pairs with nano-gap on a Si wafer. (a) SEM image of the samples, showing sizes of nano-gaps in between each pair of nano-dots. (b) Imaging of the samples by an oil-immersion microscope (neighboring nano-dots cannot be resolved clearly). (c) Neighboring separated nano-dots are resolved clearly by a microsphere with 20 μm diameter. The back dash line in (c) indicates the line cut (the intensity analysis is presented in supplementary materials). (d~f) Imaging of samples with complex features (the "nano-rose"). (d) Zoomed-in SEM image with size notations, it shows that the typical line width of the structure is ~140 nm, and separated by nano-grooves with a typical size ranging from 50~60 nm. (e) Imaging result by the oil-immersion optical microscope. (f) Image under the 27μm microsphere in scanning mode. The diameter of the microsphere is larger in order to contain the entire nano-rose in the central region. (Compared to the microsphere used for the imaging of nano-dots, the microsphere with a larger diameter is chosen to ensure the entire nano-rose pattern is in the central region of the microsphere. Inset: zoomed-in image under the microsphere). (g~i) Imaging of a magnetic head in a hard disc drive from the production line. (g) SEM image of the magnetic head, with a nano-gap of 77 nm. (h) Imaging by a conventional oil-immersion microscope. (i) Imaging by the microsphere nanoscope in non-contact mode. The three columns represent images obtained by SEM, oil-immersion optical microscope (100×, NA 1.4), and microsphere nanoscope, respectively.
