Electroless nickel plating on optical fiber probe

As a component of near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM),optical fiber probe is an important factor influncing the equipment resolution.Electroless nickel plating is introduced to metallize the optical fiber probe.The optical fibers are etched by 40% HF with Turner etching method.Through pretreatment,the optical fiber probe is coated with Ni-P film by clectrolcss plating in a constant temperature water tank.Atomic absorption spectrometry (AAS),scanning electron microscopy (SEM),and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDXS) are carried out to charaeterizc the deposition on fiber probe.We have rcproducibly fabricated two kinds of fiber probes with a Ni-P fihn:aperture probe and apertureless probe.In addition,reductive particle transportation on the surface of fiber probe is proposed to explain the cause of these probes.