In a scanning tunneling microscope experiment, the luminescence induced by the recombination of holes with electrons tunneling into cleaved (110) GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures is used to image the interface region with nanometer resolution.

T he optical second-harmonic intensity generated by magnetic multilayers of cobalt and gold strongly depends on the m agnetization. At norm al incidence the results are independent of the am ount of bulk cobalt and gold, b u t are accurately described by pure m agnetic interface contri butions. This represents a way to probe buried interface m agnetism using magnetization-induced second-harmonic generation.

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Images of magnetic bits written in a Pt/Co multilayer are presented. Using photosensitive semiconducting tips in a scanning tunneling microscope, both surface topography as well as polarization-dependent optical transmission are measured. Magnetic contrast is achieved by detection of the Faraday effect. Magneto-optical lateral resolution of 250 nm is demonstrated.

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The charge generated at the apex of a semiconductor tip upon laser irradiation is utilized in a scanning tunneling microscope. We show such arrangements can produce photoinduced tunnel currents of several hundred picoamperes, sufficient for stable STM operation and sensitive enough to detect nanowatt variations in the incident optical power.

Semiconductor tips are used as local photodetectors in a scanning tunneling microscope. We demonstrate that this configuration is sensitive to small light intensity variations, as supported by a simple model. The principle is applied to the detection of Faraday ellipticity of a Pt/Co multilayer sample. The outlook of this new technique in magnet-optical imaging is briefly discussed.