Abstract
Near-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy is emerging as a powerful tool for the investigation of semiconductor structures. Tunable excitation combined with sub-wavelength resolution is providing an unprecedented level of detail on the local optical properties of semiconductor structures. Recent near-field optical studies have addressed issues of laser diode mode profiling, minority carrier transport, near-field photocurrent response of quantum-well structures and laser diodes, imaging of local waveguide properties, and location and studies of dislocations in semiconductor thin films. We present results on the intrinsic resolution limitations of near-field photoconductivity in quantum-well heterostructures and demonstrate that the resolution depends strongly on the amount of evanescent and propagating field components in the semiconductor. Spectroscopic mode-profiling of high-power laser diode emission details the spatial dependence of multiple spectral modes. This paper presents an overview of NSOM techniques for semiconductor systems, its limitations, and present status.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1073-1081 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 1995 |
Funding
Manuscript received August 23, 1995. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant ECS-9309607 and under Grant DMR91-58097, and by ONR under Grant N00014-93-1-1186. B. B. Goldberg, M. S. Unlii, W. D. Herzog, and H. F. Ghaemi are with Boston University, Center for Photonics Research, 590 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 USA. E. Towe is with the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 USA. IEEE Log Number 94 15855.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering