MRI: Acquisition of Surface-Enhanced Confocal Raman-AFM

技术摘要为了探索纳米材料的新前沿，研究人员应该具备表征纳米、生物和半导体材料的能力，而不仅仅是纳米级的地形特征。为了定制纳米材料及其与聚合物和生物大分子的界面的特性，伦斯勒园区现有的合成和加工新材料的研究工作将得到极大的加强，因为可以从所要求的系统获得与局部形态有关的急需的化学和振动光谱信息，分辨率为10-100 nm。通过结合表面增强拉曼光谱和扫描探针显微镜在单一原位表征平台上表征纳米结构材料的能力，建议的共焦拉曼-AFM仪器将加深我们对纳米材料中纳米尺度结构域和界面的了解，从而促进为纳米和生物技术应用设计新型纳米材料的独特机会。非技术摘要在纳米技术和生物技术应用的前沿工作的材料研究人员需要在比人类头发小一百万倍的小尺寸(即纳米尺度)域中同时拥有化学和结构信息。纳米技术和生物技术材料研究的一个独特方面是许多具有纳米尺度非均质结构的材料(即纳米材料)中存在的高度显著的表面积与体积比，这不仅为开发基于表面/界面的新科学和技术打开了大门，而且还要求了解界面和表面上的材料性质。现在，通过测量入射光束的颜色变化并同时使用尖端探针对纳米材料的小区域进行成像，非破坏性和高分辨率的分析可以表征纳米区域中的化学成分和表面/界面结构。这就像是用尖头听老式留声机的歌曲，同时用激光听CD播放机的歌曲。这种独特的工具将为材料研究的进展提供宝贵的信息，特别是在纳米材料与聚合物和蛋白质的界面处定制性能方面。

Technical abstractTo explore new frontiers in nanomaterials, researchers should be equipped with the ability to characterize nano-, bio- and semiconducting-materials beyond just nanoscale topographical features. In order to tailor properties of nanomaterials and their interfaces with polymers and biological macromolecules, the existing research efforts on the Rensselaer campus for the synthesis and processing of new materials will be greatly enhanced by having access to the much-needed chemical and vibrational spectroscopy information pertaining to local morphology with 10 - 100 nm resolution available from the requested system. By combining the power of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and scanning probe microscopy for the characterization of nanostructured materials on a single in-situ characterization platform, the proposed confocal Raman-AFM instrument will enhance our understanding on the nanoscale domains and interfaces in nanomaterials to promote unique opportunities of designing novel nanomaterials for nano- and bio-technology applications. Non-technical abstractMaterial researchers working at the frontiers of nanotechnology and biotechnology applications need to have both chemical and structural information in small-size (i.e. nanoscale) domains that are million times smaller than the size of a human hair. A unique aspect of materials research for nanotechnology and biotechnology is the highly pronounced ratio of surface area to volume present in many materials with nanoscale heterogeneous structures (i.e. nanomaterials), which not only opens doors to developing new surface/interface-based science and technology, but also demands understanding of material properties at the interfaces and on the surfaces. A nondestructive and high-resolution analysis is now possible to characterize both chemical composition and surface/interface structure in the nanoscale region by measuring the change in the color of the incident light beam and imaging the small region of nanomaterials using a sharp-tip probe at the same time. This is very much like listening to a song from an old-fashioned gramophone player using a sharp-tip and a compact disk player using a laser light at the same time. Such unique tool will provide invaluable information for the advancement of materials research particularly to tailor the properties of nanomaterials at their interfaces with polymers and proteins.