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Topographical as well as microscopic imaging of nanoscale surfaces plays a pivotal role across various disciplines. Nevertheless, achieving fast, label-free, and accurate characterization of laterally expanded structures below the diffraction limit remains challenging. Recent studies highlight the use of microsphere assistance for resolution improvement. Confocal microscopy, augmented by microspheres, enables the imaging of small structures that were previously inaccessible. This is experimentally compared with microsphere-assisted microscopy (MAM) to underline the decisive role of the confocal effect.

We present how to develop virtual microcylinder- or microsphere-assisted surface topography measurement instruments. As the most critical part, the interaction between light, microcylinder and measurement object is considered based on the finite element method (FEM). Results are obtained for microcylinder-assisted conventional, interference, and confocal microscopes without necessity to repeat the time-consuming FEM simulations for each sensor.