Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy with amplitude-controlled tapping-mode AFM

Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) is a powerful tool for analyzing chemical compositions at the nanoscale owing to near-field light localized at a metallic tip. In TERS, atomic force microscopy (AFM) is commonly used for tip position control. AFM is often controlled under the contact mode for T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2022-07, Vol.12 (1), p.12776-12776, Article 12776
Main Authors: Umakoshi, Takayuki, Kawashima, Koji, Moriyama, Toki, Kato, Ryo, Verma, Prabhat
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/1107/527/1821
639/624/400/1021
639/766/930/12
Atomic force microscopy
Humanities and Social Sciences
multidisciplinary
Raman spectroscopy
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Spectroscopy
Spectrum analysis
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Summary:Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) is a powerful tool for analyzing chemical compositions at the nanoscale owing to near-field light localized at a metallic tip. In TERS, atomic force microscopy (AFM) is commonly used for tip position control. AFM is often controlled under the contact mode for TERS, whereas the tapping mode, which is another major operation mode, has not often been employed despite several advantages, such as low sample damage. One of the reasons is the low TERS signal intensity because the tip is mostly away from the sample during the tapping motion. In this study, we quantitatively investigated the effect of the tapping amplitude on the TERS signal. We numerically evaluated the dependence of the TERS signal on tapping amplitude. We found that the tapping amplitude had a significant effect on the TERS signal, and an acceptable level of TERS signal was obtained by reducing the amplitude to a few nanometers. We further demonstrated amplitude-controlled tapping-mode TERS measurement. We observed a strong dependence of the TERS intensity on the tapping amplitude, which is in agreement with our numerical calculations. This practical but essential study encourages the use of the tapping mode for further advancing TERS and related optical techniques.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-022-17170-7