Super User

Super User

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 00:00

Bio AFM

BioAFM with highest force sensitivity and true integration of upright and inverted microscopes

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 00:00

Nanolithography

Fountain pen nanowriting of liquids, gases, suspensions, and proteins with various integration options

Wednesday, 29 October 2014 00:00

Probes

Optically friendly for all SPM functions, imaging, writing, manipulation and characterization.

 Plasmonics waveguides have unique, attractive features such as 1) allowing co-propagation of optical and electrical signals and 2) tight confinement of the electromagnet mode.  A recently published work describes a new configuration of plasmonic waveguides that tries to overcome the device’s well-known obstacle of a limited propagation length, where the loss of light signal occurs due to light absorption in the metal.  Authors Uriel Levy and colleagues use a Nanonics Multiview 4000 in this paper [Optics Express, 2014] to characterize the properties of the waveguide and to measure the propagation loss of the waveguide modes.  They find comparable propagation loss in their devices, and they suggest significant improvements to the propagation losses with changes to the fabrication process of the device.

Published:  Optics Express, Sep 3 2014

 

 

 

 

This paper demonstrates the detection of whispering–gallery mode (WGM) distribution in a fused silica micro disk resonator with a highly sensitive Nanonics Imaging cantilevered Pt/Au micro thermocouple probe and a Nanonics Imaging MultiView 4000 Scanning Probe Microscope.

 

Whispering gallery modes were excited by an evanescent tapered fiber with wavelengths in the 1550nm-1560nm range.  The thermocouple probe enabled detection of thermal distribution simultaneously with the topographic data.  As the tip penetrates the evanescence field, the light absorption leads to heating measured by the thermal tip, giving a thermal image of the light intensity distribution.  The thermal distribution was compared with NSOM results on the sample in transmission, reflection and collection modes.

 

 

 

 

Schematic of the experimental setup for thermal

mapping of  WGM in microdisk resonator

 

 

 

 

Thermal map of WGM in microdisk resonator

 

 

In Brief: This paper elegantly shows that the thermocouple probe has great potential for detection in the near field in visible and near-IR optical ranges and can be used as a tool to study different photonics devices.  

 

Published:  March 1, 2014/Vol.29, No.5/Optics Letters

 

 

Monday, 06 October 2014 16:23

TERS detection of membrane receptors

The ability to obtain chemical information about various receptors within cell membranes could advance efforts for drug development that target disease associated with receptor activity.  A key class of cell membrane proteins associated with cell adhesion, differentiation, and growth are integrin receptors.  In this work, TERS conducted with a Nanonics Multiview 4000 selectively detects the Raman spectrum of the integrin receptor in the cellular membrane.

Authors Hao Wang and Zachary Schultz of University of Notre Dame [ChemPhysChem 2014]use nanoparticles functionalized with ligands to bind with intact cell membranes.  The nanoparticle then functions as an enhancing nanostructure enabling TERS measurements of the Raman spectra of the ligands.  The authors conduct TERS to detect the signal of the amino acid within the integrin receptor and thus elucidate the structure of the receptor’s binding site.  This demonstrates the powerful utility of TERS for obtaining sensitive chemical information about amino acids relevant to chemical processes within cellular membrane proteins.

TERS setup for imaging nanoparticle functionalized ligands

Published:  2014 ChemPhysChem

Monday, 06 October 2014 16:11

Arbitrary bending plasmonic light waves

Plasmonic light waves along arbitrary curves

The ability to control and guide plasmonic light waves could present significant opportunities in photonics and electronics applications for nanoscale-on-chip technologies and subwavelength optical devices.  Different kinds of plasmonic beams have been observed including those that preserve their spatial shape with propagation (“nonspreading”) and those that propagate along curved trajectories (“self-accelerating”).  By conducting numerical simulations and direct experiments with NSOM using a Nanonics Multiview 2000 system, authors Itai Epstein and Ady Arie generate surface plasmon beams that propagate along arbitrary curved trajectories.  These beams have important applications such as enabling trapping/guiding of microparticles or bypassing a curve of concentrated light.

 

 

 

Published:  Physical Review Letters, 112, 023902 (2014)

Sunday, 05 October 2014 09:05

AFM, NSOM and Capicatance

Sunday, 05 October 2014 08:25

Materials Gallery

Tuesday, 30 September 2014 16:45

Nanonics at AVS 2014

Nanonics will be attending and exhibiting at AVS, November 11-13 2014 in Baltimore