Volume 24 Issue 3 April 2010

Peter N. Nirmalraj,^1,3 Jonathan N. Coleman ^2,3 and John J. Boland ^1,3
1. School of Chemistry, 2. School of Physics, 3. Center for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

We describe the potential of CI-AFM methodology as a powerful tool capable of probing local topography and electronic transport in a range of nanoscale materials. We demonstrate these capabilities by discussing the properties of carbon nanotube networks, the ability of CI-AFM to provide high resolution conductance images and to analyse transport mechanisms within these materials...

Craig Prater,¹ Kevin Kjoller,¹ Debra Cook,¹ Roshan Shetty,¹ Gregory Meyers,² Carl Reinhardt,² Jonathan Felts,³ William King,³ Konstantin Vodopyanov ⁴ and Alexandre Dazzi.⁵
1. Anasys Instruments, Santa Barbara, CA, USA. 2. The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI, USA. 3. University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. 4. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA. 5. Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, France.

While AFM can measure mechanical, electrical, magnetic and thermal properties of materials, it has lacked the robust ability to chemically characterize unknown materials. Infrared spectroscopy is a benchmark technique used in a broad range of sciences and industry to characterize and identify materials
via vibrational resonances of chemical bonds. We have successfully integrated AFM with IR spectroscopy to allow measurement of high quality IR spectra at arbitrary points in an AFM image, thus providing nanoscale chemical characterization...