MARCH 1999 REPORT FOR

W. CHARLES SYMONS, III

The first two weeks of March were spent preparing for and attending the 1999 Pittsburgh Conference in Orlando, Florida. As mentioned last month, the Near-IR NSOM instrument became operational at the end of last month. Although, the instrument is currently undergoing improvements, a small image was collected of the 0.463 µm line spaced diffraction grating replica acquired from Ted Pella, Inc as seen in Figures 1 and 2 below. This image was incorporated into the Pittsburgh Conference presentation entitled NEAR-IR SPECTRAL IMAGING BEYOND THE DIFFRACTION LIMIT which can be viewed online.

Figure 1: Ted Pella Diffraction Grating Replica.

Figure 2: Near-IR NSOM Diffraction Grating Image.

With the completion of the Pittsburgh Conference, work resumed on the X Band NSOM instrument. At this point, the X-Band antenna setup was calibrated and some thin-wire samples were placed within the system. These samples appeared to confirm the current Moment Method and FDTD models. Currently the setup is being finalized and the final data collection run should be completed within the next couple of weeks.