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We discuss theoretically the concept of spatial resolution in near-fieldscanning optical microscopy (NSOM) in light of a recent work [Opt. Express 17(2009) 19969] which reported on the achievement of active tips made of a singleultrasmall fluorescent nanodiamond grafted onto the apex of a substrate tip andon their validation in NSOM imaging. Since fluorescent nanodiamonds tend todecrease steadily in size, we assimilate a nanodiamond-based tip to apoint-like single photon source and compare its ultimate resolution with thatoffered by standard metal-coated aperture NSOM tips. We demonstrate bothclassically and quantum mechanically that NSOM based on a point-like tip has aresolving power that is only limited by the scan height over the imaged systemwhereas the aperture-tip resolution depends critically on both the scan heightand aperture diameter. This is a consequence of the complex distribution of theelectromagnetic field around the aperture that tends to artificially duplicatethe imaged objects. We show that the point-like tip does not suffer from this"squint" and that it rapidly approaches its ultimate resolution in thenear-field as soon its scan height falls below the distance between the twonano-objects to be resolved.

Near-field microscopy with a single-photon point-like emitter: Resolution versus the aperture tip?