Near-field probe emission focused by hyperbolic metamaterial

Conventional fiber-based metal coated aperture near-field probes offer a technologically easily reproducible and costfriendly option to achieve substantially good resolution in near-field imaging and lithography techniques, however the limiting mechanism behind the performance of these probes is the shape and the dimensions of the aperture. Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMM) have enabled the possibility to directly influence the propagation of highly-localized evanescent optical modes due to their extreme anisotropic properties. Implementation of such anisotropic metamaterial onto the tapered metal-coated probes offers a novel possibility to fabricate a probe capable of achieving the /7 resolution and better. This paper deals with a design and numerical characterization of plasmonic near-field probe consisting of tapered optical fiber coated with aluminium upon which a hyperbolic metamaterial is placed. The hyperbolic dispersive medium enables a directional propagation and interference of the highly-localized near-field waves.