Breakthrough Nanoscale Infrared Spectroscopy Technology

Anasys Instruments is pleased to introduce its highly innovative nanoIR™ platform, a powerful new measurement tool that reveals the chemical composition of samples at the nanoscale.

“The goal of nanoIR technology is to overcome major barriers in AFM and conventional IR spectroscopy,” explained Dr Craig Prater, Anasys Instruments’ Chief Technology Officer. “AFM has outstanding resolution, but no ability to perform chemical spectroscopy. IR spectroscopy is a benchmark tool for chemical characterisation, but lacks spatial resolution to address nanoscale problems. Anasys has focused on bridging these gaps.”

Anasys Instruments Co-Founder and Vice President of Product Development Kevin Kjoller, added: “In addition to revealing chemical composition, the nanoIR system provides high-resolution characterisation of local
topographic, mechanical, and thermal properties.”

The nanoIR system combines the nanoscale spatial resolution capabilities of atomic force microscopy (AFM) with infrared spectroscopy’s ability to characterise and identify chemical species. Users of nanoIR technology
can quickly survey regions of a sample via AFM and then rapidly acquire high-resolution chemical spectra at the selected regions. The system can also be programmed to automatically acquire spectra from an array
of points across the sample. Mechanical and thermal properties, such as local thermal transitions, may also be mapped with nanoscale resolution.

Potential nanoIR application areas include polymer blends, multilayer films and laminates, organic defect analysis, tissue morphology and histology, subcellular spectroscopy, and organic photovoltaics. Polymer spectra
acquired with the nanoIR system are rich, interpretable, and have demonstrated good correlation with bulk Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra. The nanoIR software allows researchers to export nanoscale IR
absorption spectra to standard analysis packages. With this interface, nanoIR spectra can be used to rapidly analyse samples and identify specific chemical components.