July 29th, 2015
High interest in AFM-IR and AFM based nanoscale chemical characterization reflected in Applied Spectroscopy publication download statistics.
Anasys Instruments, the pioneer in commercializing nanoscale infrared spectroscopy instrumentation, including AFM-IR and s-SNOM, is pleased to direct readers to an in-depth review of AFM-IR technology published as a Focal Point article in Applied Spectroscopy. Originally appearing in the December 2012 issue, this article was downloaded 763 times in the first 6 months of 2015, ranking it second among the top downloaded papers as tracked on the Journal’s website. It was also a top downloaded publication in 2014. The lead author, Dr. Curtis Marcott of Light Light Solutions and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Delaware commented, “I’m not surprised at this outpouring of interest since nanoscale IR spectroscopy provides a new pair of very powerful nano glasses which enable FTIR spectroscopists see phenomena in the field of life sciences and polymers in a dramatic new way with new and expanded insights. This can range from Protein Secondary structure of single fibrils and sub-cellular composition to polymer interface chemistry”
This high and sustained level of interest reflects the scientific community’s demand for molecular spectroscopic data at high spatial resolution to characterize the nature of nanoscale domains that so frequently influence the function and performance of synthetic and biological materials. The review paper is titled, “AFM‐IR: Combining Atomic Force Microscopy and Infrared Spectroscopy for Nanoscale Chemical Characterization”, and the authors include Alex Dazzi, Craig Prater, Qichi Hu, Bruce Chase, John Rabolt, and Curtis Marcott. The publication is available to download through the Society for Applied Spectroscopy website, at:
www.s-a-s.org/journal/viewer/abstract/10874 where they have listed all the top downloaded publications.
AFM-IR moves infrared microscopy and chemical imaging into a spatial resolution regime well past the diffraction limit of both conventional infrared and Raman microscopes through use of an integrated atomic force microscope as a near-field detector. On thin films, sub-50 nm resolution has been achieved. Anasys Instruments has recently advanced nanoscale IR Spectroscopy by introducing the nanoIR2-s™ spectrometer which combines AFM-IR with s-SNOM technology. This expands the nanoscale IR platform from Anasys to applications such as Graphene, 2D materials and Photonics in addition to the other more common applications.