Scanning near-field microscopy and spectroscopy of silver particles embedded in plasmapolymer matrices

Using a home-built scanning near-field optical microscope we have obtained subwavelength microscopic images of silver particles in polymer matrices. Samples with different particle sizes and different filling factors were produced by plasmapolymerisation. Spatially highly resolved spectra were obtained using a sensitive CCD camera connected to a spectrometer. Spectral information allows in principle to avoid the "ubiqitous" artefacts in scanning near-field optical microscopy, reported recently by Pohl et al. And is able to yield the size and orientation of particles.