Near-field acoustic microscope
1002202-150
[DEFINITION]
A microscope that measures supersonic radiation intensity through a
pinhole extremely close to specimen while scanning the pinhole in a raster pattern to obtain high
resolution acoustic images.
[DESCRIPTION]
The near-field acoustic microscope is one of the near-field microscopes.
It is also called as the scanning near-field supersonic microscope. A near-field
acoustic microscope can draw an image of acoustic mutual reactions within
a specimen by the use of supersonic waves as the signal source. Although
it uses acoustic waves, its resolution can be hightened better than one
micrometer by the use of a microscopic pinhole. Horizontal resolution of
recent units is about 0.1 micrometer. However, reducing the size of the
pinhole weakens the signal intensity, and highly sensitive receivers are
required to get a better resolution.
[References]
(1)(28)
[Related Terms]
Scanning probe microscope (SPM)