ABSTRACT
In many scientific fields, the visualization of surface morphologies is used to obtain insight that will allow an understanding of physical, chemical and biological phenomena within the area of interest. For many years, optical microscopy has been used as a tool to produce images of surfaces in the micrometer dimension. By light microscopy, it is possible to measure the size of features in the x and y plane of a sample surface on a micrometer scale. However, in general, measurements in the z-direction will not be possible. The resolution that can be achieved by traditional light microscopes is limited to approximately one micrometer by the Nyquist relation.
