Synchrotron-based near-field photothermal microspectroscopy: Development of a quantitative nanohistology set-up with expansion of the infrared capability 2

TL;DR

This paper explores the integration of near-field photothermal microspectroscopy with synchrotron radiation to develop a quantitative nanohistology setup, demonstrating preliminary success and identifying key improvements needed.

Contribution

It presents the first successful interface of an AFM-resistive probe with synchrotron IR radiation for PTMS, advancing nanohistology capabilities.

Findings

Successful initial spectra acquisition on strong IR absorbers

Identified challenges in alignment and signal-to-noise ratio

Proposed improvements for instrumentation and data collection

Abstract

The purpose was two-fold: To explore the capability of the Diamond Synchrotron infra-red so as to include near-field photothermal microspectroscopy (PTMS); and Toward a quantitative nanohistology - investigation of scleroderma using synchrotron radiation (mu- FTIR). With recent advances in AFM, the integration of an IR temperature-based system on an IR beamline is still a promising and unique approach. These preliminary tests of the PTMS stand-alone system with the Diamond Multimode InfraRed Imaging and Microspectroscopy beamline (MIRIAM) were successful in one beamtime. To our knowledge, this is still among very few studies worldwide that managed to interface an AFM-resistive probe to measure an infrared spectrum using synchrotron radiation (SR) as a source. When the alignment was successful, we managed to obtain good spectra on samples that were strong infrared absorbers. However, the alignment could not be guaranteed all the time, and the signal-to-noise ratio became too low to record any meaningful spectra on samples deemed of scientific interest for this proposal. We clarified the possible improvements to PTMS instrumentation and data acquisition needed to ensure that we can collect sufficient thermal signals from very thin samples.