Itsuki BANNO,¹ Hirokazu HORI¹ and Tetsuya INOUE²

¹Faculty of Engineering, Yamanashi University, Kofu, Yamanashi, 400 Japan, ²Department of Information and Communication Studies, Yamanashi Eiwa College, Kofu, Yamanashi, 400 Japan

(Received August 17, 1996; Accepted September 30, 1996)

We make up a novel and simple theory for near field and near-field optical microscopy (NOM). Our theory is composed of two parts. The first is a formulation to calculate the scattered near field of light by a small dielectric. We state that a wavenumber-vector-independent picture appears in the theory of the near field, and we find that this is expressed by an Ampere-like law for the displacement vector field. The second part is a formulation of field intensity for far field observation and near field observation from a unified point of view. We suggest a theoretical formula for the field intensity corresponding to the NOM image and demonstrate how to understand the relation between the near field and this image.

Key words : near field theory, NOM, SNOM, NSOM, PSTM, magnetic current, Maxwell's boundary conditions, electromagnetism, scattering theory, vector field

*This paper was originally presented at the first Asia-Pacific Workshop on Near Field Optics, which was held on August 17 and 18, 1996 at Seoul Education and Culture Center, Seoul, Korea, organized by Condensed Matter Research Institute, Seoul National University.