Toward a near-field optical array

The fabrication and characterization of three near-field optical array types is presented. In all cases, a coherent fiber-optic bundle was chemically etched to produce an array of nanometer-sized, optical fiber tips. The 270 μm diameter bundle comprised ∼6000 tapered optical fibers and the smallest, etched optical fiber tips had an ∼50 nm radius of curvature. This array could be metal coated, and a metal-coated array could be polished to yield an array of nanometer-sized apertures. These variable nanoarchitectures should be amenable to a large number of near-field scanning optical microscopies.