Synchrotron Infrared Nanospectroscopy at LNLS: recent results and future plans

Scattering Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscopy (s-SNOM) is a well established technique for probing optical properties of materials in the nanoscale. Typically using lasers, s-SNOM has proved its versatility on solving essential problems in plasmonics, nanomaterial science, fundamental optics and, more recently, in nanoscale biochemistry. However, despite the great flux and tuneability, the most of the lasers used in s-SNOM have very narrow band compared to typical FTIR sources. Hence, typical chemical analysis in the IR fingerprint range are still challenging for laser-based s-SNOM. In this scenario, synchrotron s-SNOM is a feasible route for performing nanoscale infrared spectroscopy by taking the advantage of the high spectral irradiance of synchrotron sources through the mid-IR range.

In this talk I will present recent results achieved in the Infrared Nanospectroscopy beamline of LNLS and I will also present preliminary plans for the IR beamline to be built in the new 4^th generation machine Sirius.