INFRARED SCANNING NEAR-FIELD OPTICAL MICROSCOPY IN MATERIAL SCIENCE AND BIOLOGY

We will give an overview of our activity in the field of Infrared Scanning Near-Field Optical Microscopy (SNOM): several applications in Material Science and Biology will be presented as well some recent developments in instrumentation. In particular, by using SNOM we could observe differences in the chemical distribution of the different bonds in biological cells: in fact by coupling a SNOM with a tunable infrared source (FEL) it is possible to perform a spectroscopic study on the spatial distribution of chemical species and on other laterallyfluctuating properties. This approach has also the potential to provide early diagnostics for oesophageal cancer.