Shifa WU

Department of Physics, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116023, China

(Received August 17, 1996; Accepted September 11, 1996)

A patent for the new photon scanning tunneling microscopy (PSTM) is described in this paper, called the Tunneling Scanning Image Separation Method and Instrument. We call the new instrument described here the Image Separated-PSTM (IS-PSTM). There may be some false image information with the first generation PSTM in the mixed image of the topography and refractive index of a general optical sample. With this new method and instrument we can eliminate this false image information and separate the surface topography image and the distribution image of varying refractive indices of a general optical sample from a mixed image of PSTM.

Key words : photon tunneling, scanning optical ultramicroscopy, evanescent wave, PSTM

*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.