Optical Microscopy in the Nano-World

Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) is an optical microscopy whose resolution is not bound to the diffraction limit. It provides chemical information based upon spectral, polarization and/or fluorescence contrast images. Details as small as 20 nm can be recognized. Photophysical and photochemical effects can be studied with SNOM on a similar scale. This article reviews a good deal of the experimental and theoretical work on SNOM in Switzerland

Tissue investigation with optical coherence domain reflectometry

Optical coherence domain reflectometry is applied here to the study of diffusive biological tissue. This non-contact technique allows us to probe the light reflected at a tissue interface, and the back scattered light through the tissue thickness, with very fine spatial resolution and large dynamics. We present such measurements performed on an arterial wall, with a spatial resolution of 15 μm and a dynamic of 110 dB, and deduce from these measurements an attenuation coefficient Σt = 19 cm-1 through the arterial wall