MRI: Acquisition of Surface-Enhanced Confocal Raman-AFM

为了探索纳米材料的新领域，研究人员应该具备表征纳米材料、生物材料和生物材料的能力，而不仅仅是纳米尺度的形貌特征。 为了定制纳米材料的特性及其与聚合物和生物大分子的界面，伦斯勒校区现有的新材料合成和加工研究工作将通过获得急需的化学和振动光谱信息得到极大的加强。 通过将表面增强拉曼光谱和扫描探针显微镜的功能结合起来，在一个单一的原位表征平台上对纳米结构材料进行表征，所提出的共焦拉曼-AFM仪器将增强我们对纳米材料中的纳米尺度域和界面的理解，以促进设计用于纳米和生物技术应用的新型纳米材料的独特机会。 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小尺寸（即纳米级）域中具有化学和结构信息，这些域比人类头发的尺寸小百万倍。 纳米技术和生物技术材料研究的一个独特方面是具有纳米级异质结构（即纳米材料）的许多材料中存在的表面积与体积的高度显著比率，这不仅为开发新的表面/界面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特性。 一个非破坏性的和高分辨率的分析，现在可以通过测量入射光束的颜色变化和成像的小区域的纳米材料，同时使用一个尖锐的尖端探针来表征纳米级区域的化学成分和表面/界面结构。 这非常像同时用尖锐的尖端从老式留声机和激光光盘播放器中听一首歌。 这种独特的工具将为材料研究的进步提供宝贵的信息，特别是在与聚合物和蛋白质的界面处定制纳米材料的特性。

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.