Nanometer-scale infrared spectroscopy of heterogeneous polymer nanostructures fabricated by tip-based nanofabrication

Jonathan R. Felts, Kevin Kjoller, Michael Lo, Craig B. Prater, William P. King

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

There is a significant need for chemical identification and chemical imaging of nanofabricated structures and devices, especially for multiple materials integrated at the nanometer scale. Here we present nanofabrication, chemical identification, and nanometer-scale chemical imaging of polymer nanostructures with better than 100 nm spatial resolution. Polymer nanostructures of polyethylene, polystyrene, and poly(3-dodecylthiophene-2,5- diyl) were fabricated by tip-based nanofabrication. Nanometer-scale infrared measurements using atomic force microscopy infrared spectroscopy (AFM-IR) obtained quantitative chemical spectra of these nanostructures. We show chemical imaging of intersecting patterns of nanometer-scale polymer lines of different chemical compositions. The results indicate that for closely packed heterogeneous nanostructures, the spatial resolution of AFM-IR is not limited by nanometer-scale thermal diffusion, but is instead limited by the cantilever sensitivity and the signal-to-noise ratio of the AFM-IR system.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)8015-8021
Number of pages7
JournalACS Nano
Volume6
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 25 2012

Keywords

  • AFM
  • AFM-IR
  • TBN
  • atomic force microscope
  • nanolithography
  • photothermal induced resonance
  • tDPN
  • thermal dip-pen nanolithography
  • tip based nanofabrication

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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