Scanning near-field acoustic microscope and its application

Scanning near-field acoustic microscope (SNAM) combines the ultrasonic detection technology with scanning near-field microscopy. The main characteristic of such microscope is that the acoustic wave is produced or detected in near-field area whether ultrasonic transducer acts as generator or detector. The resolution of SNAM can reach to nanometer scale. First, two typical SNAMs, scanning electron acoustic microscope and scanning probe acoustic microscope, will be introduced in this paper. The working principle of our homemade SNAM based on a commercial scanning probe microscope will be reported, together with some recent results from this homemade SNAM.