Crystallography Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Crystallography, including details on x-ray crystals, techniques, analyses, structures.

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

Huber A, Ocelic N, Taubner T, Hillenbrand R

Nano-Photonics Group, Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie & Center for Nanoscience, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany.

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.

Published 12 April 2006 in Nano Lett, 6(4): 774-8.
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