Deciphering the
Nano-World

Microscopy opens many possibilities for understanding the composition, organization, and interaction of inhomogeneous materials. In our group, we develop variants of scanning probe microscopy (SPM) to study macromolecules, heterogeneous materials, and nanostructures to decipher their chemical, electrical, and mechanical properties.

One challenge of optical microscopy is Abbe's diffraction limit to about half of the wavelength (λ/2). Materials and structures often have nanometer-scale features much smaller than the diffraction limit—not directly resolvable by traditional optical microscopy. We work on atomic force microscopy (AFM)–based infrared (IR) and optical spectroscopy to bypass the diffraction limit, sometimes combined with ultrafast lasers or plasma emissions.