Scanning near field infrared microscopy

D. Vobornik, PhD thesis Scanning near-field Infrared Microscopy and Spectromicroscopy Applied to Nano-systems and Cells. Lausanne, 2005. 

Michaels, C.A., S.J. Stranick, L.J. Richter, and R.R. Cavanagh. 2000. Scanning near-field infrared microscopy and spectroscopy with a broadband laser source. J. Appl. Phys. 88 4832. 

IR measurements on doped Si and shown that the subsurface mobile carriers can be probed by their response to an IR near-field with a spatial resolution of 30nm [48]. The group of Havenith presented a scanning near-field infrared microscopy (SNIM) system this is an IR s-SNOM set-up based on a continuous-wave optical parametric oscillator (OPO) as an excitation source with a much wider tunability compared to the usually applied CO2 lasers [49]. With this set-up, a subsurface pattern of implanted gallium ions in a topographically fiat silicon wafer was imaged with a lateral resolution of <30 nm. 

SNIM Scanning near field infrared microscopy... 

MA Unger, DA Kossakovski, R Kongovi, JL Beauchamp, ID Baldeschwieler, DV Palanker, Etched chalcogenide fibers for near-field infrared scanning microscopy . Review of Scientific Instruments, vol.69, no.8, pp.2988-93,1998. 

Brighter, tunable ultrafast light sources would benefit many of the areas discussed in the report, particularly infrared-terahertz (between visible light and radio waves) vibrational and dynamical imaging, near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), and X-ray imaging. 

NIH NIR NMR NRS NSOM National Institutes of Health Near Infrared Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Nuclear Resonant Scattering Near-field Scanning Optical Microscopy... 

Microscopic visualization techniques have also been used to investigate mucus-polymer interactions. Transmission electron microscopy was used by Fiebrig et al., whereas different microscopical techniques were used by Lehr et al. for the visualization of mucoadhesive interfaces. Transmission electron microscopy in combination with near-field Fourier transform infrared microscopy (FTIR) has been shown to be suitable for investigating the adhesion-promoting effect of polyethyleneglycol added in a hydrogel. Moreover, scanning force microscopy may be a valuable approach to obtain information on mucoadhesion and specific adhesion phenomena. ... 

Itkis and his coworkers have recently compared different characterization methods, i.e., scanning electron microscopy [SEM], TEM, thermogravimetry (TGA], Raman, and near infrared [NIR] spectroscopy, in order to determine the optimum combination of these techniques to get reliable and accurate information about the purity of the CNT studied. They conclude that the combination of TGA and Raman spectroscopy is quite satisfying. In the same field, Herrera et al. reported a successful use of in situ temperature programmed oxidation [TPO] and Raman spectroscopy to reach the same goal. 

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