Far-Field and Non-Intrusive Optical Mapping of Nanoscale Structures

Far-field high-density optics storage and readout involve the interaction of a sub-100 nm beam profile laser to store and retrieve data with nanostructure media. Hence, understanding the light–matter interaction responding in the far-field in such a small scale is essential for effective optical information processing. We present a theoretical analysis and an experimental study for far-field and non-intrusive optical mapping of nanostructures. By a comprehensive analytical derivation for interaction between the modulated light and the target in a confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) configuration, it is found that the CLSM probes the local density of states (LDOSs) in the far field rather than the sample geometric morphology. With a radially polarized (RP) light for illumination, the far-field mapping of LDOS at the optical resolution down to 74 nm is obtained. In addition, it is experimentally verified that the target morphology is mapped only when the far-field mapping of LDOS coincides with the geometric morphology, while light may be blocked from entering the nanostructures medium with weak or missing LDOS, hence invalidating high-density optical information storage and retrieval. In this scenario, nanosphere gaps as small as 33 nm are clearly observed. We further discuss the characterization for far-field and non-intrusive interaction with nanostructures of different geometric morphology and compare them with those obtainable with the projection of near-field LDOS and scanning electronic microscopic results.