Chemical characterization of polymeric films, blends, and self-assembled monomers

The spatial resolution of conventional bulk infrared (IR) spectroscopy is limited by Abbe diffraction laws to between 3–10 µm, depending on the method used. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a widely used nanoscale imaging technique that provides the user with a high spatial resolution topographic map of a sample surface. Until now, the major drawback of AFM has been its inability to chemically characterize the material underneath the tip. When combined with an IR source, the resulting AFM-IR technique breaks the diffraction limit of conventional IR spectroscopy by orders of magnitude, while still providing the high-resolution imaging capabilities of AFM.1 In this application note from Bruker, explore how AFM-IR is used to address nanoscale chemical characterization on a range of polymeric and thin film samples.