Rapid infrared spectroscopic nano-imaging with nano-FTIR holography

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rapid nano-imaging technique combining s-SNOM, nano-FTIR, and holography, enabling fast IR spectroscopic imaging over a broad spectral range, with potential applications in materials science and nanophotonics.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel method that significantly accelerates nano-FTIR spectroscopic imaging, surpassing current speed limitations and extending spectral coverage.

Findings

Achieved 8 spectroscopic images in 20 minutes.

Demonstrated capability in polymer composite sample.

Extended IR spectral range coverage.

Abstract

Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM), and its derivate, Fourier transform infrared nanospectroscopy (nano-FTIR) are emerging techniques for infrared (IR) nanoimaging and spectroscopy with applications in diverse fields ranging from nanophotonics, chemical imaging and materials science. However, spectroscopic nanoimaging is still challenged by the limited acquisition rate of current nano-FTIR technology. Here we combine s-SNOM, nano-FTIR and synthetic optical holographic (SOH) to achieve infrared spectroscopic nanoimaging at unprecedented speed (8 spectroscopically resolved images in 20 min), which we demonstrate with a polymer composite sample. Beyond being fast, our method promises to enable nanoimaging in the long IR spectral range, which is covered by IR supercontinuum and synchrotron sources, but not by current quantum cascade laser technology.