Anasys to Discuss Major Improvements to its AFM-IR Nanoscale Spectroscopy Product Family at Pittcon 2013

The rapid introduction of nanostructured materials continues to drive nanoscale characterization techniques to provide timely, accurate, easy to use analysis methods. Anasys designs breakthrough, award-winning products that measure nanoscale material properties while providing high quality AFM imaging. This family of instrumentation includes the nano-TA™ which provides nanoscale thermal property measurements and the nanoIR™ platform which has pushed the barriers of the field of nanoscale IR measurement to new levels of resolution.

User-feedback has led to a number of new capabilities being added to systems bringing greater benefit in terms of resolution and instrument performance. For example, a new IR source with a larger laser tuning range of 900 - 4000 cm-1 now allows users better access to the critical fingerprint regime. In addition, the new source has a smaller line width providing improved spectral resolution and better matching to FTIR databases.

The sensitivity of the nanoIR has also been improved by the addition of an IR source based on a Quantum Cascade Laser (QCL). The resonance enhancement provided by the QCL enables a 10x improvement in sensitivity which enables the AFM-IR technique to work on films of thickness 10 nm and below.

Dynamic nanomechanical spectroscopy and mapping, which enables the nanoIR to be used as a multifunctional AFM in addition to being a full-featured AFM, completes the material characterization suite comprising chemical, mechanical and thermal analysis. This functionality includes the introduction of Lorentz Contact Resonance imaging pioneering the field of wideband nanoscale dynamic mechanical spectroscopy further enhancing this multiparameter reporting of materials properties at the nanoscale.

Other enhancements include alignment optimization, multi-region spectra, automated absorption image sequences, tapping mode AFM and thermal drift compensation. Users benefit with increased instrument productivity with simplified operation with the result of less training being required.

The scientific sessions once again will include new polymer applications presentations using nanoIR. Dr Curtis Marcott from Light Light Solutions is talking about the nanoscale characterization of polymeric materials while Dr Michael Lo from Anasys will present data on the chemical identification of unknown multilayers on the nanoscale.