High-contrast topography-free sample for near-field optical microscopy

The issue of topography artifacts has proven to play a very important role in interpreting images recorded in scanning near-field optical microscopy. We report on the fabrication and characterization of samples with essentially no topographic features while possessing very high optical contrast on the nanometric lateral scale. These samples open the door to routine and uncontroversial examinations of the resolution obtained in a scanning near-field optical microscope. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)04409-0]