Wednesday June 29, 2005
Thursday June 30, 2005

"Infrared Spectroscopy of Single Virus "
Mr. Markus Brehm
Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie

Markus Brehm, Thomas Taubner, and Fritz Keilmann Max-Planck-Institut für Biochemie, D-82152 Martinsried (München), Germany Infrared fingerprint spectroscopy has traditionally been a powerful tool for chemical and structural analysis, but because of diffraction could not solve problems requiring < 5µm microscopic resolution. Scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) overcomes this limit by exploiting the near-field coupling between a sharp tip and the sample, allowing resolutions of 20 nm even at mid-infrared wave-lengths [1,2]. Here we show infrared-spectroscopic mapping of a single virus within the spectral range of the protein amide-I band (≈1600 - 1700 cm1 ) demonstrating a resolution of ≈100 times better compared to conventional infrared microscopy. We therefore believe that this method can be of significant use to some problems in biology. [1] T. Taubner, R. Hillenbrand, and F. Keilmann, ”Performance of visible and mid-infrared scattering-type near-field optical microscopes,”Journal of Microscopy, vol. 210, pp. 311-314, 2003. [2] T. Taubner, R. Hillenbrand, and F. Keilmann, ”Nanoscale polymer recognition by spectral signature in scattering infrared near-field mi-croscopy”, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 85 (22), 2004.