PiFM and PiF-IR are the next generation of infrared spectroscopy techniques. PiFM brought a major shift to atomic force microscopy by adding chemical mapping capabilities. PiF-IR, its sister technique, is designed for measuring nanoscale spectra. But PiF-IR isn’t just a supporting tool—it’s a powerful spectroscopy method in its own right, expanding what’s possible across all types of IR spectroscopy, including FTIR.
While FTIR remains a reliable and versatile standard, it can’t keep up with the spatial resolution and surface sensitivity demands of modern nanomanufacturing. As precision and sensitivity become increasingly critical, PiF-IR delivers a level of performance that no other infrared technique can match.
Background
FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectroscopy is a well-established analytical technique used to detect and identify both organic and inorganic molecules. It’s effective for analyzing solids, liquids, and gases. For comparison with PiF-IR, however, this article will focus on its use with solid materials.
Most FTIR instruments function purely as spectrometers, providing a bulk measurement of the sample. This means they can’t capture spatial chemical variations, which is a significant limitation, especially when analyzing composite materials.
To address this, some systems combine an infrared microscope with an FTIR spectrometer to spatially resolve chemical features within a sample. While this setup offers some improvement, FTIR is still constrained by the diffraction limit of infrared light, limiting spatial resolution to around 5 microns. As a result, unless large quantities of pure material are available, FTIR’s utility can become limited.
PiF-IR, by contrast, is an AFM-IR technique that uses photo-induced forces (PiF) to analyze solid and thin-film samples with exceptionally high spatial resolution. These systems are built on atomic force microscopes, which naturally offer spatial resolutions down to just a few nanometers.
When infrared capability is added, the improvement in resolution and surface sensitivity is remarkable.
PiFM absorption maps can reveal chemical distributions with lateral resolution better than 5 nm, and PiF-IR spectroscopy can analyze volumes at least a billion times smaller than what FTIR can detect. This makes PiF-IR vastly more sensitive and localized than even the most advanced FTIR microscopes.
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Acknowledgments
Produced from materials originally authored by Molecular Vista.
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by Molecular Vista.
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