Cantilever based, fully metal coated near‐field optical probes have been studied theoretically and experimentally. It is shown that these probe structures allow light transmission, even if the tip is entirely covered with a 60nm thick metallic film. The calculated far‐field intensity patterns correspond to those of the experimental measurements. Furthermore, when the injected light is radially polarized, the calculations predict a high electromagnetic field confinement in the near‐field. As expected from these simulations, strong light confinement and hence, high optical resolution is obtained when discriminating the linear polarization component of the field. © 2003 American Institute of Physics