Tip-enhanced infrared nanospectroscopy via molecular expansion.pdfVIP

LETTERS PUBLISHED ONLINE: 19 JANUARY 2014 | DOI: 10.1038/NPHOTON.2013.373 Tip-enhanced infrared nanospectroscopy via molecular expansion force detection Feng Lu, Mingzhou Jin and Mikhail A. Belkin* Mid-infrared absorption spectroscopy in the molecular finger- and the spatial resolution was limited, in a first approximation, by print region is widely used for chemical identification and quan- the thermal diffusion length in samples during a short laser titative analysis employing infrared absorption spectra pulse8–14. Here, we show that the sensitivity of mid-infrared photo- databases. The ability to perform mid-infrared spectroscopy expansion nanospectroscopy may be improved by several orders of with nanometre spatial resolution is highly desirable for appli- magnitude and that the nanoscale images can be taken with a spatial cations in materials and life sciences. At present, scattering resolution effectively limited only by the AFM tip apex size. We near-field scanning optical microscopy1–6 is considered to be report high-quality mid-infrared spectra collected from samples as the most sensitive technique for nanoscale mid-infrared spec- small as monolayer islands and attain a sensitivity exceeding that troscopy under ambient conditions. Here, we demonstrate obtained by the best scattering near-field scanning optical 1,2 that nanoscale mid-infrared spectra can be obtained with com- m