Far-field optical microscopy with a nanometer-scale resolution based on the in-plane image magnification by surface plasmon polaritons

A new far-field optical microscopy capable of reaching nanometer-scale resolution is developed using the in-plane image magnification by surface plasmon polaritons. This approach is based on the optical properties of a metal-dielectric interface that may provide extremely large values of the effective refractive index n(eff) up to 10(3) as seen by surface polaritons, and thus the diffraction limited resolution can reach nanometer-scale values of lambda/2n(eff). The experimental realization of the microscope has demonstrated the optical resolution better than 60 nm at 515 nm illumination wavelength.