Nanoscale Chemical Imaging via AFM coupled IR Spectroscopy

Conventional infrared spectroscopy is one of the most widely used tools in science and industry to identify materials via vibrational resonances of chemical bonds, but optical diffraction limits its spatial resolution to the scale of many microns.Atomic force microscopy (AFM) enjoys excellent spatial resolution and can measure mechanical, electrical, magnetic and thermal properties of materials, but has historically lacked the ability to perform robust chemical analysis.Two techniques, (1) AFM-based infrared spectroscopy (AFM-IR) and ( 2) scattering scanning near field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) have been developed which couple AFM with an IR source allowing the chemical identification capabilities of IR spectroscopy to extend to the nanoscale.As complementary techniques, AFM-IR and s-SNOM together provide an unrivaled capability to perform nanoscale chemical analysis on a diverse range of organic, inorganic, photonic and electronic materials.