Imaging surface photonic states with a circularly polarized tip

Photon unoccupied states tailored by nanostructures present at sample surfaces can be probed using a scanning near-field optical microscope including large detection angles (Chicanne C. et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 88 (2002) 097402-4). We demonstrate, theoretically and experimentally, how such setups equipped with a circularly polarized SNOM tip can deliver images of surface photonic states with a nanometer scale resolution.