Near field optics for nanometric sensing and control

It has been believed that one of the major reasons for the popularity of optical sensing is its non-destructive and remote-sensing capability. We can measure an object remotely far from the sensor without any damage to the object. However, in the near-field optical sensing which is described in this presentation a probe is nearly in contact to the object in a distance of some nanometers. While near-field optics loses the merit of remotely accessible capability with ordinary optics, it has significant advantages of super-resolving imaging, field-enhanced sensing and control, and nanometric surface fabrication. These advantages enable optics for contributing to the advanced micro-electro-mechanical systems. In this presentation, I describe the principle of this near-field optical sensing and control, with some latest experimental examples. The research of the near-field optics is still now progressing as an advanced optical technology, coupled with the related high technologies such as very precise mechanical scanner, nanometric fabrication, and very high-sensitive photodetection