A microscope from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory will allow scientists studying biological and synthetic materials to simultaneously observe chemical and physical properties on and beneath the surface. The Hybrid Photonic Mode-Synthesizing Atomic Force Microscope combines the disciplines of nanospectroscopy and nanomechanical microscopy.
“The originality of the instrument and technique lies in its ability to provide information about a material’s chemical composition in the broad infrared spectrum of the chemical composition while showing the morphology of a material’s interior and exterior with nanoscale – a billionth of a meter – resolution,” said principal investigator Ali Passian of ORNL’s Quantum Information System group.
The hybrid microscope consists of a photonic module that is incorporated into a mode-synthesizing atomic force microscope. The modular aspect of the system enables accommodation of various radiation sources, such as tunable lasers and non-coherent monochromatic or polychromatic sources.
Researchers will be able to study samples ranging from engineered nanoparticles and nanostructures to naturally occurring biological polymers, tissues, and plant cells.
The microscope was initially used to examine plant cell walls under several treatments to provide submicron characterization.
