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Updated: Oct 7, 2026

Assembly, Tuning and Use of an Apertureless Near Field Infrared Microscope for Protein Imaging
Published on: November 25, 2009
Mid-infrared scanning near-field optical microscope resolves 30 nm
1Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, Martinsried, Germany. knoll@biochem.mpg.de
Abstract:
We explore the performance of a scanning near-field infrared microscope, which works by scattering tightly focused CO2 laser radiation (lambda = 10 microm) from the apex of a metallized atomic force microscope tip. The infrared images of test samples prove a spatial resolution of 30 nm and are free of topographical and inertial artefacts, thus they should be of great interest for practical applications. We also observe that the infrared contrast vanishes when the input beam polarization is orthogonal to the tip axis, in accordance with theoretical expectations for a mechanism of longitudinal field interaction.
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