This work describes progress in near-field optical science and technology. The title implies capabilities of optical near-field not only for imaging/microscopy but also for fabrication/manipulation/processing on a nanometric scale. The authors introduce the differences between near-field optics and far-field optics from both experimental and theoretical perspectives. The work touches on a wide range of topics in near-field optics, and can be used both by the novice and experienced researcher already familiar with the subject, to connect the experimental with the theoretical aspects of...

Conventional optical science and technology have been restricted by the diffraction limit from reducing the sizes of optical and photoruc devices to nanometric dimensions. Thus, the size of optical integrated circuits has been incompatible with that of their counterpart, integrated electronic circuits, which have much smaller dimensions. This book provides potential ideas and methods to overcome this difficulty. Near-field optics has developed very rapidly from around the middle 1980s after preliminary trials in the microwave frequency region, as proposed as early as 1928. At the early stages...