Nanoscale chemical imaging and spectroscopy

We are interested in identifying the unique chemical fingerprint of materials and mapping their chemical properties with nanoscale lateral resolution.

Diagram showing IR laser pulses interacting with a gold-coated cantilever, illustrating contact resonances and frequency analysis using FFT for surface mapping with a position detector.

Our Team’s accomplishments

  • 2019-2024: Our NSF CAREER grant will support the development of new schemes for nanoscale infrared spectroscopy and polarized infrared spectroscopy

  • 2007-present: Explore the effect of multi-frequency AFM on the performance of nanoscale infrared spectroscopy

Diagram illustrating a gold-coated cantilever interacting with a sample, utilizing pulsed IR light and a read-out laser for imaging, along with a related frequency signal graph.

Related publications

  • F.E. Torres-Davila, M. Molinari, R.G. Blair, N. Rochdi, L. Tetard, Enhancing Infrared Light–Matter Interaction for Deterministic and Tunable Nanomachining of Hexagonal Boron Nitride, NanoLetters, doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c02841, 2022

  • H.J. Sharahi, M. Janmaleki, L. Tetard, S. Kim, H. Sadeghian, G.J. Verbiest, Acoustic subsurface-atomic force microscopy: Three-dimensional imaging at the nanoscale, Journal of Applied Physics, 129 (3), 030901, 2021 – Selected for cover page and Features Article

  • A. S. Patri, B. Mostofian, Y. Pu, N. Ciaffone, M. Soliman, M. D. Smith, R. Kumar, X. Cheng, C. E. Wyman, L. Tetard, A. J. Ragauskas, J. C. Smith, L. Petridis, C. M. Cai, A multifunctional co-solvent pair reveals molecular principles of biomass deconstruction, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 141, 32, 12545-12557, 2019

  • L. Tetard, A. Passian, R. H. Farahi, T. Thundat, B. H. Davison, Opto-nanomechanical spectroscopic material characterization, Nature Nanotechnology, 10, 870–877, 2015

  • L. Tetard, A. Passian, S. Eslami, N. Jalili, R. H. Farahi, T. Thundat, Virtual resonance and frequency difference generation by van der Waals interaction, Physics Review Letters, 106, 180801, 2011