Imaging of Electric and Magnetic Near Field

Abstract

Localized surface plasmon resonances are self-sustained collective oscillations of free electrons in metallic nanostructures. We have demonstrated the possibility to map their electric and magnetic near field by electron energy loss spectroscopy utilizing Babinet’s principle. Further, we have indicated quantitative limits of our approach due to limited validity of Babinet’s principle and discussed the influence of the experimental parameters to the signal-to-background ratio.