(color online) Microsphere contacting nanoscope. (a) Schematic of transmission mode microsphere superlens integrated with classical optical microscope. Spheres collect near-field object information and form virtual images that can be captured by conventional lens. (b)–(d) Intensity distributions calculated for (b) SIL with height , (c) sphere and (d) particle on surface of 40-nm-thick gold film, for the sphere with and RI = 1.46 at λ = 600 nm. (e) Gold-coated fishnet AAO sample imaged with microsphere ( ) superlens. Nanoscope clearly resolves pores of 100-nm-pitch (bottom left SEM image). Size of optical image between the pores within the image plane is 400 nm (bottom right ON image), which corresponds to magnification factor 8. Scale bar size: . Reproduced with permission from Ref. [40].