This paper presents the design of a Scanning Near-field Optical Microscopy (SNOM) probe for the use with specimen in liquid environment. The approach is based on a first electro-mechanical characterization of existing SNOM probes. A modeling stage has permitted to identify and optimize critical probe parameters in order to improve SNOM sensitivity: development and implementation of SNOM probes for air and in liquid environments have been verified with imaging of both standard and soft samples.
