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Nano-optics is an emergent research field in physics that appeared in the 1980s, which deals with light–matter optical interactions at the nanometer scale. In early studies of nano-optics, the main concern focus is to obtain higher optical resolution over the diffraction limit. The researches of near-field imaging and spectroscopy based on scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) are developed. The exploration of improving SNOM probe for near-field detection leads to the emergence of surface plasmons. In the sense of resolution and wider application, there has been a significant transition from seeking higher resolution microscopy to plasmonic near-field modulations in the nano-optics community during the nano-optic development. Nowadays, studies of nano-optics prefer the investigation of plasmonics in different material systems. In this article, the history of the development of near-field optics is briefly reviewed. The difficulties of conventional SNOM to achieve higher resolution are discussed. As an alternative solution, surface plasmons have shown the advantages of higher resolution, wider application, and flexible nano-optical modulation for new devices. The typical studies in different periods are introduced and characteristics of nano-optics in each stage are analyzed. In this way, the evolution progress from near-field optics to plasmonics of nano-optics research is presented. The future development of nano-optics is discussed then.
邓 et al. (Mon,) studied this question.