Effect of interactive damping on vibration sensitivities of a scanning near-field optical microscope probe

The effect of interactive damping on the sensitivity of flexural and axial vibration modes of scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) with a tapered optical fiber probe has been analyzed. The interaction of the SNOM probe with a sample surface is modeled by a combination of a spring and a dashpot in the flexural direction and a similar combination in the axial direction. An approximate form for the sensitivities of both modes was derived by using the Rayleigh-Ritz method. The results show that the interactive damping will decrease the sensitivities of both flexural and axial vibration modes when the contact stiffness is low. The more the damping effect, the lower the sensitivities are. In addition, when the contact stiffness was low, the flexural sensitivity of the tapered probe slightly increased as the tapered angle decreased. However, the axial sensitivity apparently decreased as the tapered angle decreased. When the contact stiffness became higher, the sensitivities of both flexural and axial vibration modes increased as the tapered angle increased.