Near field microscopy for medical applications using 2-D pipette scan

An important approach dealing with sub lambda super resolution effect is based on a 3-D scanning of the examined sample using a pipette with small diameter. The scanning in the z direction is required for the conservation of the distance between the sample and the pipette and it is time consuming. In this paper we suggest a modification of that approach based on 2-D scanning. The scanning in the z direction is replaced by the usage of white light illumination. Based on the spectrum of the scanned information, one can compute the height of the surface. This consumes much less time than the conventional pipette scanner. This approach appears to be reasonable if the profile is varying not more than a portion of a wavelength. If, however, the object is not flat but slightly curved on a large scale we propose to employ a servo for the height. This servo can be much slower than the signal servo in the traditional approach.