A scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) is based upon the interaction between light waves and matter on subwavelenght scale and enables to overcome the classical Rayleigh's resolution limit. An optical probe acts as a converter of near field, containing information on tiny (of nanometer size) details of the investigated object, into easily measurable far field. This overview article reports the basic knowledge on this new kind of probe microscopy. Some principles, history, various most common designs and a list of important improvements and applications are given. \\eng\
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