Looking into photonic structures with a photon scanning tunneling microscope

In periodic structures photons can be made to behave like electrons. This results in the opening of a so called "photonic stop gap", a range of forbiddden optical frequencies that cannot exist inside the material. To investigate such photonic materials on the nanoscale we will use state-of-the art scanning probe technologies. This allows us to map the optical field distribution and the phase of the light simultaneously with the topographical information of the structure. Such measurements on photonic materials will complement standard investigation methods, such as in/output measurements. Our ultimate goal is to find out what happens to an excited individual molecule located inside the photonic materials, when it "wants" to fluoresce at a forbidden frequency in the gap. Will it emit a photon, yes or no?