New hybrid microscope ‘can offer insights into material composition’

Researchers in the US have created new microscope technology with the potential to simultaneously observe chemical and physical properties on and beneath the surface of various materials.

Developed by the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the Hybrid Photonic Mode-Synthesizing Atomic Force Microscope uniquely combines the disciplines of nanospectroscopy and nanomechanical microscopy.

It provides a noninvasive rapid method to explore materials simultaneously for their chemical and physical properties, retaining the advantages of atomic force microscopy while also offering high-resolution and subsurface spectroscopic capabilities.

The device can potentially be used in the imaging of a diverse selection of samples, ranging from engineered nanoparticles and nanostructures to naturally-occurring biological polymers, tissues and plant cells.

It has already been used in the examination of plant cell walls under several treatments to provide submicron characterisation and to offer imaging of poplar cell wall structures.

Principal investigator Ali Passian of ORNL's Quantum Information System group said: "It allows researchers to study the surface and subsurface of synthetic and biological samples, which is a capability that until now didn't exist."