Analysis of deep sub-micron resolution in microsphere based imaging

2014 AIP Publishing LLC. Based on full wave simulations, 0.3 and 0.24 imaging resolutions can be achieved for incoherent transverse and longitudinal point dipoles, respectively, when the dipoles are on an aluminum oxide base with a fused silica microsphere as the imaging lens. These high spatial resolutions (better than 0.5 ) can be attributed to almost 90 light acceptance angle of the microsphere and the solid immersion effects from the microsphere/base material. These simulation results can explain the 0.3 and 0.24 minimum resolvable center to center separation distance for thin metallic nanostructures and elongated metallic nanostructures, respectively, which is equal to 0.1-0.14 edge to edge distance observed in previous microsphere imaging experiments.

Analysis of deep sub-micron resolution in microsphere based imaging Academic Article