Conventional optical science and technology have been restricted by the
diffraction limit from reducing the sizes of optical and photoruc
devices to nanometric dimensions. Thus, the size of optical integrated
circuits has been incompatible with that of their counterpart,
integrated electronic circuits, which have much smaller dimensions. This
book provides potential ideas and methods to overcome this difficulty.
Near-field optics has developed very rapidly from around the middle
1980s after preliminary trials in the microwave frequency region, as
proposed as early as 1928. At the early stages of this development, most
technical efforts were devoted to realizing super-high-resolution
optical microscopy beyond the diffraction limit. However, the
possibility of exploiting the optical near-field, phenomenon of
quasistatic electromagnetic interaction at subwavelength distances
between nanometric particles has opened new ways to nanometric optical
science and technology, and many applications to nanometric fabrication
and manipulation have been proposed and implemented. Building on this
historical background, this book describes recent progress in near-field
optical science and technology, mainly using research of the author's
groups. The title of this book, Near-Field Nano-Optics-From Basic
Principles to Nano-Fabrication and Nano-Photonics, implies capabilities
of the optical near- field not only for imaging/microscopy, but also for
fabrication/manipulation/proc- essing on a nanometric scale.