(color online) Schematic of the NWRIM. (a) Schematic of configuration and imaging process. Hexagon array is used as an example object to show effect of NWRIM. Under omnidirectional evanescent illumination from fluorescent NWR, subdiffraction nested features of central hexagon show up in far-field image. (b) Basic mechanism of NWRIM method. and are surficial wave vectors of the illuminating and scattered light, respectively, under conventional illumination. and are surficial wave vectors of illuminating and scattered light, respectively, under NWR evanescent illumination. (c) SEM image of a line pair with spacing of 170 nm on Al₂O₃–SiO₂–Si double layer substrate. (d) Far-field optical microscopy image of slot pair under nanowire illumination. Images under nanowire illumination (lower inset) and conventional illumination (upper inset) are magnified for clarity. NA = 0.85. Reproduced with permission from Ref. [50].