Analysis of polarization effects on nanoscopic objects in the near-field optics.

This paper deals with the analysis of polarization around nanoscopic objects in near-field optics. The objects are illuminated through a transparent glass substrate under the condition of total internal reflection. The use of dielectric and metallic materials in the optical images is discussed. Using numerical simulations based on the Green's dyadic technique, we compute the total transmitted intensity of the scattered light and the different Cartesian components associated with the electric field in the attenuated total reflection configuration at constant height. The role of localized plasmon resonance is brought to the fore in the optical images of nanoscopic metallic objects. This paper shows that it is possible to reduce the interferences due to backward scattering from nanoscopic objects thanks to this polarimetry analysis.