Detection of Luminescent Nanodiamonds Using a Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscope with an Aperture Probe

摘要

Scanning near-fi eld optical microscopy (SNOM) with an aperture probe has been used to map the luminescence of isolated submicron diamond crystallites. 532-nm laser light was used to excite luminescence of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. The sizes of the analyzed diamond crystallites were determined with an atomic-force microscope. The optical resolution for the lateral dimensions of the luminescing diamond crystallites was doubled on going from confocal luminescence microscopy to scanning near-fi eld optical microscopy with a 290-nm probe aperture diameter.