[OPTICAL REVIEW Vol. 3, No. 6B (1996) 458-462]

Representations and Transforms of Vector Field as the Basis of Near-Field Optics*

Tetsuya INOUE1 and Hirokazu HORI2

1Department of Information and Communication Studies, Yamanashi Eiwa College, 888, Yokone, Kofu, 400 Japan, 2Department of Electronics and Computer Science, Yamanashi University, 4-3-11, Takeda, Kofu, 400 Japan

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

We report the novel mathematical description of the vector mode functions which provide a useful basis for theoretical treatment of near-field optical microscope and related phenomena. The vector planar, spherical, and cylindrical mode functions and transforms are formulated on the bases of spatial rotational functions and angular spectrum representations. It is demonstrated that the formulation provides the bases to evaluate the range and locality of optical near-field interaction of sub-wavelength sized matter with an example of electric dipole interaction.

Key words : near-field optics, near-field optical microscope, vector mode function, rotational function, angular spectrum

*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.

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