Boundary Element Modeling for THz-SNOM Near-Field Probes
Abstract
Terahertz scanning near-field optical microscopy (THz-SNOM) enables spatially and spectrally resolved investigation of low-energy collective and topological states in quantum materials and nano-structured devices by exploiting the strongly localized near field generated by a polarized atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip. Because the THz near-field response is highly sensitive to tip geometry, understanding how geometric parameters control field confinement and decay is essential for selecting tip designs that provide the spatial resolution required for specific experiments. In this work, we develop a boundary element method (BEM) for modeling the electrostatic near-field of a conducting AFM tip in response to an external background field. The tip is represented by a simplified closed, blunt-cone geometry with its surface discretized into panels using increased mesh density near the apex. A modified Green's function is used to calculate interactions between surface panels, while an augmented linear system simultaneously enforces the equipotential boundary condition on the conducting surface and overall charge neutrality to determine the induced surface-charge distribution. We validate the BEM by comparing the resulting near-field decay with that obtained from a three-dimensional quasi-static COMSOL Multiphysics simulation. The BEM accurately reproduces the COMSOL field-decay behavior while requiring orders of magnitude fewer mesh elements and substantially reducing computational cost. These results demonstrate that the BEM provides an accurate and computationally efficient framework for systematically investigating the dependence of THz near-field confinement on AFM tip geometry. This framework can be extended to more complex and experimentally realistic tip geometries, providing a route toward rational tip selection and design for application-specific spatial-resolution requirements.
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BibTeX
@misc{reich2026boundary,
title = {{Boundary Element Modeling for THz-SNOM Near-Field Probes}},
author = {Noah Reich and Richard Kim and Thomas Koschny and Jigang Wang},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.24151},
eprint = {2610.24151},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.24151},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Boundary Element Modeling for THz-SNOM Near-Field Probes
AU - Noah Reich
AU - Richard Kim
AU - Thomas Koschny
AU - Jigang Wang
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/16
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.24151
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.24151
AB - Terahertz scanning near-field optical microscopy (THz-SNOM) enables spatially and spectrally resolved investigation of low-energy collective and topological states in quantum materials and nano-structured devices by exploiting the strongly localized near field generated by a polarized atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip. Because the THz near-field response is highly sensitive to tip geometry, understanding how geometric parameters control field confinement and decay is essential for selecting tip designs that provide the spatial resolution required for specific experiments. In this work, we develop a boundary element method (BEM) for modeling the electrostatic near-field of a conducting AFM tip in response to an external background field. The tip is represented by a simplified closed, blunt-cone geometry with its surface discretized into panels using increased mesh density near the apex. A modified Green's function is used to calculate interactions between surface panels, while an augmented linear system simultaneously enforces the equipotential boundary condition on the conducting surface and overall charge neutrality to determine the induced surface-charge distribution. We validate the BEM by comparing the resulting near-field decay with that obtained from a three-dimensional quasi-static COMSOL Multiphysics simulation. The BEM accurately reproduces the COMSOL field-decay behavior while requiring orders of magnitude fewer mesh elements and substantially reducing computational cost. These results demonstrate that the BEM provides an accurate and computationally efficient framework for systematically investigating the dependence of THz near-field confinement on AFM tip geometry. This framework can be extended to more complex and experimentally realistic tip geometries, providing a route toward rational tip selection and design for application-specific spatial-resolution requirements.
ER -