Scanning Near-Field Fluorescence Microscopy Applied to ESEM

A scanning near-field fluorescence microscopy for in situ test is demonstrated in this letter. The scanning nearfield fluorescence microscopy can be applied to commercial environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) without changing the ESEM performance. The designed scanning nearfield fluorescence microscopy combines the advantage of the ESEM and scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM). The CdSe/ZnS quantum dot samples are prepared to verify system performance. The system offers fluorescence image and topography image simultaneously with a high depth and high resolution, thus permitting further ingredient and functional research. The topography image spatial resolution and the fluorescence image spatial resolution are below 130 nm and 115 nm, respectively, with a tip aperture of ~100 nm. The image range reaches 300 × 300 μm by virtue of the micromanipulators and image stitching technology.