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Phys. Rev. B 64, 054411 (2001) [13 pages]

Theory of a magnetic microscope with nanometer resolution

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Peter Johansson*
Division of Solid State Theory, Department of Physics, University of Lund, Sölvegatan 14 A, S-223 62 Lund, Sweden
Department of Natural Sciences, University of Örebro, S-701 82 Örebro, Sweden

S. Peter Apell†
Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology and Göteborg University, S-41296 Göteborg, Sweden
Donostia International Physics Center, San Sebastian, Spain

D. R. Penn‡
Electron Physics Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899

Received 26 September 2000; revised 18 December 2000; published 5 July 2001

We propose a theory for a type of apertureless scanning near-field microscopy that is intended to allow the measurement of magnetism on a nanometer length scale. A scanning probe, for example a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) tip, is used to scan a magnetic substrate while a laser is focused on it. The electric field between the tip and substrate is enhanced in such a way that the circular polarization due to the Kerr effect, which is normally of order 0.1%, is increased by up to two orders of magnitude for the case of a Ag or W tip and an Fe sample. Apart from this there is a large background of circular polarization which is nonmagnetic in origin. This circular polarization is produced by light scattered from the STM tip and substrate. A detailed retarded calculation for this light-in-light-out experiment is presented.

© 2001 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.64.054411
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevB.64.054411
PACS:
78.20.Ls

*Electronic address: peter.johansson@teorfys.lu.se

†Electronic address: apell@fy.chalmers.se

‡Electronic address: david.penn@nist.gov

 
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