Nanoscale resolved infrared probing of crystal structure and of plasmon-phonon coupling

Nano Lett. 2006 Apr;6(4):774-8. doi: 10.1021/nl060092b.

Abstract

We show that slight variations of a crystal lattice cause significant spectral modifications of phonon-polariton resonant near-field interaction between polar semiconductor crystals and a scanning metal tip. Exploiting the effect for near-field imaging a SiC polytype boundary, we establish infrared mapping of crystal structure and crystal defects at 20 nm spatial resolution (lambda/500). By spectroscopic probing of doped SiC polytypes, we find that phonon-polariton resonant near-field interaction is also sensitive to electronic properties due to plasmon-phonon coupling in the crystals.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Crystallography / methods*
  • Electric Impedance
  • Materials Testing / methods*
  • Microchemistry / instrumentation*
  • Microchemistry / methods
  • Molecular Conformation
  • Nanostructures / analysis*
  • Nanostructures / chemistry*
  • Nanotechnology / methods*
  • Surface Plasmon Resonance / methods*