Simultaneous near field imaging of electric and magnetic field in photonic crystal nanocavities

The insertion of a metal-coated tip on the surface of a photonic crystal microcavity is used for simultaneous near field imaging of electric and magnetic fields in photonic crystal nanocavities, via the radiative emission of embedded semiconductor quantum dots (QD). The photoluminescence intensity map directly gives the electric field distribution, to which the electric dipole of the QD is coupled. The magnetic field generates, via Faraday's law, a circular current in the apex of the metallized probe that can be schematized as a ring. The resulting magnetic perturbation of the photonic modes induces a blue shift, which can be used to map the magnetic field, within a single near-field scan.

► A metallic coated tip for scanning near-field microscopy interacts with the magnetic field of a photonic crystal cavity. ► The interaction results in a sizeable high frequency shift of its eigenmodes. ► By constructing near field maps of this shift one obtains with high spatial resolution the spatial distribution of the magnetic field intensity.