Abstract
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been extensively used for the nanoscale characterization of polymeric materials. The coupling of AFM with infrared spectroscope (AFM-IR) provides another advantage to the chemical analyses and thus helps to shed light upon the study of polymers. This paper reviews some recent progress in the application of AFM and AFM-IR in polymer science. We describe the principle of AFM-IR and the recent improvements to enhance its resolution. We also discuss the latest progress in the use of AFM-IR as a super-resolution correlated scanned-probe infrared spectroscopy for the chemical characterization of polymer materials dealing with polymer composites, polymer blends, multilayers, and biopolymers. To highlight the advantages of AFM-IR, we report several results in studying the crystallization of both miscible and immiscible blends as well as polymer aging. Finally, we demonstrate how this novel technique can be used to determine phase separation, spherulitic structure, and crystallization mechanisms at nanoscales, which has never been achieved before. The review also discusses future trends in the use of AFM-IR in polymer materials, especially in polymer thin film investigation.
Highlights
Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) is a popular spectroscopic technique used for the characterization and identification of numerous materials, especially for the polymers, biomaterials and life sciences [1,2,3,4,5]
This paper provides the latest progress in the application of Atomic force microscopy (AFM)-IR technique for polymer
This paper provides the latest progress in the application of AFM with infrared spectroscope (AFM-IR) technique for polymer material studies dealing with polymer composites, polymer blends, biopolymers and multilayers
Summary
Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) is a popular spectroscopic technique used for the characterization and identification of numerous materials, especially for the polymers, biomaterials and life sciences [1,2,3,4,5]. A new nanoscale spectroscopy, so-called photo-induced force microscopy (PiFM) has been developed to study the gradient of optical forces during the light absorption of molecular vibrational resonances, which are applied to a high sensitive AFM. Such recent attempts effectively break the diffraction limit of light and provide vibrational spectroscopy with a nanoscale spatial resolution that is a crucial tool for characterizing novel energy materials [44]. This method has been considered as an important development in sub-micrometer spectroscopies and chemical imaging The use of this technique has shed light on many assumptions and has provided new mechanisms in the investigation of polymer materials [56,57]. The goal of this review article is to provide to readers the latest advancements in the use of AFM and AFM-IR techniques in structurally characterizing polymers blends, polymer composites and multilayers, especially on polymer aging as well as on crystallization studies
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