Investigation of morphologies and optical features in ultra-thin organic films by SNOAM

The thin films have been studied by scanning near-field optical/atomic force microscopy (SNOAM). The typical structural changes of the aggregates of the merocyanine molecules were measured in the state of ultra-thin LB films by SNOAM. In the continuous measurement on the dye, the appearance of near-field optical transmission images showed dependence on the near-field irradiation laser beam. the topographical image indicate that this LB film has more rough surface morphology than that of normal expectation and LB film is grained with average grain size about 50 nm. The near-field transmission image shows highly separated structure of transmission and independent image on the surface topography. The dual information, their optical structure and surface morphology, afforded by SNOAM system is valuable for thin film research.