Terahertz Nano-Imaging with s-SNOM

Abstract

Spectroscopy and imaging with terahertz radiation propagating in free space suffer from the poor spatial resolution which is a consequence of the comparatively large wavelength of the radiation (300 μm at 1 THz in vacuum) in combination with the Abbe diffraction limit of focusing. A way to overcome this limitation is the application of near-field techniques. In this chapter, we focus on one of them, scattering-type Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (s-SNOM) which − due to its versatility − has come to prominence in recent years. This technique enables a spatial resolution on the sub-100-nm length scale independent of the wavelength. We provide an overview of the state-of-the-art of this imaging and spectroscopy modality, and describe a few selected application examples in more detail.