Anasys's NanoIR platform can be used with polymer blends, multilayer films and laminates, organic defect analysis, tissue morphology and histology, subcellular spectroscopy and organic photovoltaics.
The measurement tool reveals the chemical composition of samples at the nanoscale.
'The goal of NanoIR technology is to overcome major barriers in AFM and conventional IR spectroscopy,' said Dr Craig Prater, Anasys Instruments' chief technology officer.
Anasys co-founder and vice president of product development Kevin Kjoller added: 'In addition to revealing chemical composition, the NanoIR system provides high-resolution characterisation of local topographic, mechanical and thermal properties.
The NanoIR system combines the nanoscale spatial resolution capabilities of atomic force microscopy (AFM) with infrared spectroscopy's ability to characterise and identify chemical species.
Users of NanoIR technology can quickly survey regions of a sample via AFM and then rapidly acquire high-resolution chemical spectra at the selected regions.
The system can also be programmed to automatically acquire spectra from an array of points across the sample.
Mechanical and thermal properties, such as local thermal transitions, may also be mapped with nanoscale resolution.
Dr Curtis Marcott, scientific advisor to Anasys Instruments, said: 'The technology will let us break through the submicron spatial resolution barrier and apply IR spectroscopy to new classes of problems beyond our current capabilities.' Polymer spectra acquired with the NanoIR system are said to be rich and interpretable, and have demonstrated good correlation with bulk Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra.
The NanoIR software allows researchers to export nanoscale IR absorption spectra to standard analysis packages.
With this interface, NanoIR spectra can be used to rapidly analyse samples and identify specific chemical components.
