Imaging of THz photonic modes by scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy

International audience; We investigated the near-field distribution associated to the photonic mode of terahertz photonic micro-resonators by scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy. Probing individual THz microresonators concentrating electric field is important for high-sensitivity chemical and biochemical sensing and fundamental light-matter interactions studies at nanoscale. We imaged both electric field concentration predicted by numerical simulations and unexpected patterns that deviate from intuitive assumptions. We propose a scenario based on the multiplication of the near-field with the far-field pattern of the probe / resonator ensemble that is in excellent agreement with the experimental data and propose an image analysis procedure to recover the near-field of such structures.