Modeling scanning near-field optical photons scattered from an atomic force microscope for quantum metrology.

Scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) is a promising technique for overcoming Abbe diffraction limit and substantially enhancing the spatial resolution in spectroscopic imaging. The s-SNOM works by exposing an atomic force microscope (AFM) tip to an optical electromagnetic (EM) field, while the tip is so close to a dielectric sample that the incident beam lies within the near-field regime and displays nonlinear behavior. We suggest replacing the incident EM field by photons generated by a single photon emitter, and propose a theoretical model for the suggested system by employing electric-dipole approximation, image theory, and perturbation theory.