Towards phonon photonics: scattering-type near-field optical microscopy reveals phonon-enhanced near-field interaction

Diffraction limits the spatial resolution in classical microscopy or the dimensions of optical circuits to about half the illumination wavelength. Scanning near-field microscopy can overcome this limitation by exploiting the evanescent near fields existing close to any illuminated object. We use a scattering-type near-field optical microscope (s-SNOM) that uses the illuminated metal tip of an atomic force microscope (AFM) to act as scattering near-field probe. The presented images are direct evidence that the s-SNOM enables optical imaging at a spatial resolution on a 10 nm scale, independent of the wavelength used (λ=633 nm and 10 μm). Operating the microscope at specific mid-infrared frequencies we found a tip-induced phonon-polariton resonance on flat polar crystals such as SiC and Si3N4. Being a spectral fingerprint of any polar material such phonon-enhanced near-field interaction has enormous applicability in nondestructive, material-specific infrared microscopy at nanoscale resolution. The potential of s-SNOM to study eigenfields of surface polaritons in nanostructures opens the door to the development of phonon photonics--a proposed infrared nanotechnology that uses localized or propagating surface phonon polaritons for probing, manipulating and guiding infrared light in nanoscale devices, analogous to plasmon photonics