Paper: 2015 Broadband infrared vibrational nano-spectroscopy using thermal blackbody radiation

Broadband infrared vibrational nano-spectroscopy using thermal blackbody radiation

Reviews and Highlights Quantum Science Molecular and Soft-matter Ultrafast Nano-optics and Nanophotonics Mineralogy and Geochemistry

Brian T. O’Callahan, William E. Lewis, Eric A. Muller, Silke Moebius, Jared C. Stanley, and Markus B. Raschke
Optics Express 23, 32063 (2015).
DOI PDF

Infrared vibrational nano-spectroscopy based on scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) provides intrinsic chemical specificity with nanometer spatial resolution. Here we use incoherent infrared radiation from a 1400 K thermal blackbody emitter for broadband infrared (IR) nano-spectroscopy. With optimized interferometric heterodyne signal amplification we achieve few-monolayer sensitivity in phonon polariton spectroscopy and attomolar molecular vibrational spectroscopy. Near-field localization and nanoscale spatial resolution is demonstrated in imaging flakes of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) and determination of its phonon polariton dispersion relation. The signal-to-noise ratio calculations and analysis for different samples and illumination sources provide a reference for irradiance requirements and the attainable near-field signal levels in s-SNOM in general. The use of a thermal emitter as an IR source thus opens s-SNOM for routine chemical FTIR nano-spectroscopy.