Borrowing from Microwave Holography a Technique for Broad-Band Nano Imaging at Infrared Wavelengths

Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) for Nano imaging includes different techniques, ranging from Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscopy (able to acquire images beyond diffraction limit), up to Scanning Microwave Microscopy developed to achieve imaging and characterization of a sample at Microwaves. In the present work we describe a technique which implements the concept of “Synthetic Reference Wave”, borrowed from Microwave Holography and already introduced in Synthetic Aperture Radars (SAR), to perform Nano scale quantitative imaging at infrared wavelengths. Although this approach was already combined in the past with AFM, in the following paper we proposed a different implementation, potentially suitable for wide-band imaging at Nano scale.