Experimental investigation of superfocusing of plasmonic lens with chirped circular nanoslits

A plasmonic lens with metallic chirped circular nanoslits corrugated on Au film supported on quartz substrate for the purpose of superfocusing was put forth and fabricated by means of focused ion beam direct milling technique. Topography of the lens was imaged using an atomic force microscope. After that a near-field scanning optical microscope was employed for optical characterization of focusing performance of the lens. Our experimental results verify the focusing performance and further demonstrate that they are in agreement with the theoretical calculation results. Focusing performance is significantly improved in comparison to that of the non-chirped lens. The lenses are possible to be used for the applications of bioimaging, detection, and inspection in submicron scale resolution. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America