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Boron nitride nanoresonators for phonon-enhanced molecular vibrational spectroscopy at the strong coupling limit

In the article “Boron nitride nanoresonators for phonon-enhanced molecular vibrational spectroscopy at the strong coupling limit” the authors use, for the first time, phonon-polariton-resonant h-BN ribbons for SEIRA spectroscopy of small amounts of organic molecules in Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. They demonstrate a new way to strongly couple infrared light and molecular vibrations, by utilizing phonon polariton nanoresonators made of hexagonal boron nitride, a Van der Waals material.

For the nanoscale Fourier transform infrared (nano-FTIR) spectroscopy mentioned in this article an oscillating Pt/Ir coated NanoWorld Arrow-NCPt AFM probe was illuminated by p-polarized mid-IR broadband radiation.

Figure 2 from “Boron nitride nanoresonators for phonon-enhanced molecular vibrational spectroscopy at the strong coupling limit”: Far- and near-field spectroscopic characterization of h-BN ribbon arrays. (a) Sketch of the transmission spectroscopy experiment. Incoming light at normal incidence is polarized perpendicular to the ribbons to excite the HPhP resonance. (b) Transmission spectrum normalized to the bare substrate spectrum, T/T0, for a 20 × 20 μm2 h-BN ribbon array. Ribbon width w=158 nm, ribbon period D=400 nm and ribbon height h=40 nm. (c) Sketch of the nano-FTIR spectroscopy experiment. The near-field probing tip is scanned across (y-direction) the h-BN ribbon in 20-nm steps, as indicated by the dashed blue line. Near-field spectra are recorded as a function of the tip position (the detector signal is demodulated at the third harmonic of the tip tapping frequency, yielding s3(y, ω), as explained in the Materials and methods section). (d) Lower panel: Spectral line scan s3(y, ω), where each horizontal line corresponds to a spectrum recorded at a fixed y-position (vertical axis). Upper panel: Illustration of the real part of the z-component of the electric field (Re[Ez]) profile across the ribbon at the resonance frequency observed in the nano-FTIR spectra (lower panel).

Marta Autore, Peining Li, Irene Dolado, Francisco J Alfaro-Mozaz, Ruben Esteban, Ainhoa Atxabal, Fèlix Casanova, Luis E Hueso, Pablo Alonso-González, Javier Aizpurua, Alexey Y Nikitin, Saül Vélez & Rainer Hillenbrand
Boron nitride nanoresonators for phonon-enhanced molecular vibrational spectroscopy at the strong coupling limit
Light: Science & Applications volume 7, page 17172 (2018)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/lsa.2017.172

For the full article please follow this external link: https://rdcu.be/7B0F

The article: Boron nitride nanoresonators for phonon-enhanced molecular vibrational spectroscopy at the strong coupling limit by Marta Autore et. al, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

High resolution imaging of amorphous glass surfaces in liquid

Inspired by Kristen M. Burson et al.’s “Resolving amorphous solid-liquid interfaces by atomic force microscopy”, Applied Physics Letters 108, 201602 (2016); http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.4949556, the scans below were made by Dr. Roger Proksch of Asylum Research using a NanoWorld Arrow UHF AFM probe and an Asylum Cypher Atomic Force Microscope.

Figure 1. Topography images of disordered lattice imaged at an amplitude setpoint of 2 nm. a) 10nm scan and b) 5nm scan. Both images clearly demonstrate sub-nm amorphous glass surface.

Figure 2. a) Surface topography and b) tip-sample stiffness of a region of the glass sample imaged using AMFM stiffness mapping. 10 nm scan

Using blueDrive and the NanoWorld Arrow UHF AFM tip, it was also possible to simultaneously map the topography and tip-sample stiffness using AM-FM mode (Figure 2). Like Burson et al., a disordered-appearing surface, with length scales similar to those reported in that paper could be seen. Interestingly, these structures were visible with slightly different resolutions with every attempt made. This is a testament to the low noise of the Cypher AFM and to the reliable sharpness of the Arrow UHF cantilevers.

Courtesy of Dr. Roger Proksch, Asylum Research, an Oxford Instruments Company.

#afmprobes #afmtips #atomicforcemicroscopy #AFM

Sub-nanometer Resolution Imaging with Amplitude-modulation Atomic Force Microscopy in Liquid

Researchers from the Physics Department at Durham University demonstrate an imaging technique using Atomic Force Microscopy in their JoVE Engineering publication.

For each step, the authors have explained the scientific rationale behind their choices to facilitate the adaptation of the methodology to every user’s specific system.

The NanoWorld Arrow-UHF AFM probe for high speed AFM is also mentioned in this publication.

Ethan J. Miller, William Trewby, Amir Farokh Payam, Luca Piantanida, Clodomiro Cafolla, Kislon Voïtchovsky, Sub-nanometer Resolution Imaging with Amplitude-modulation Atomic Force Microscopy in Liquid (2016), JoVE, 1940-087X, doi:10.3791/54924

https://www.jove.com/video/54924/sub-nanometer-resolution-imaging-with-amplitude-modulation-atomic

AM-AFM images of hard samples in fluid solutions. – figure from Sub-nanometer Resolution Imaging with Amplitude-modulation Atomic Force Microscopy in Liquid Jove.com – please refer to link above for the full article