Tip Enhanced Raman Scattering ( TERS) discovered back in 2000, is a synergetic technique that combines high spatial resolution and the ease of use of Scanning Probe Microscopy ( SPM) with strong enhancement and chemical specificity of Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering ( SERS). Despite dramatic progress in TERS made during first 12 years, its broad use was hampered by the lack of user friendly instrumentation and commersially available strongly enhancing TERS probes. Introduction of new generation of TERS hardware, development of dedicated TERS imaging modes and several types of well performing TERS probes made it possible to start using TERS as an analytical method for nanoscale chemically specific imaging. Carbon-based materials such as fullerens, carbon nanotubes, graphene and it's derivatives can be routinely mapped using TERS both as a single-component samples or complex multicomponent mixtures, providing information on their structural specificity with spatial resolution down to less than 5nm. Self assembled monolayers as well as polymer films can also be consistently images using TERS providing unique possibility for analysis of the distribution of different molecules in only few nanometer thick films. TERS maps can now be collected at the speed of conventional high quality SPM imaging which makes TERS completely ready for broad use in analytical laboratories.

Tip enhanced Raman scattering: New nanoscale chemical imaging method

251st National Meeting (2016)

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