Enhanced nanometer-scale infrared spectroscopy with a contact mode microcantilever having an internal resonator paddle

Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is one of the most widely used analytical techniques to measure the chemical composition of organic materials. IR spectra can lead to identification of specific chemical species, but the diffraction limit prohibits IR spectroscopy from probing regions smaller than about 5 ¿m. This paper demonstrates IR spectroscopy with 100 nm spatial resolution using a tunable IR laser and a vibrating atomic force microscope cantilever. Novel microcantilevers transduce thermomechanical pulses from the laser, with a factor of 6 signal-to-noise improvement over conventional microcantilevers. We show 100 nm IR spectroscopy for chemical identification of ethylene acrylic acid (EAA) and Nylon.