Near-field optical microscopic recording on Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films and chemically modified surfaces

We present here our scanning near-field optical microscopic (SNOM) recording on chemically modified surfaces and Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films. As the photochemical reaction, photocleavage of the chemically modified Si(100) surface and photoisomerization from trans- to cis-form of azobenzene moieties of an amphiphilic azobenzene derivative in the LB films were utilized. Photochemically recorded surfaces were studied with AFM and friction force microscopy (FFM). It was found that FFM can be used to read out the photochemically recorded images with a high lateral resolution.