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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Nano@Tech features Dr. Curtis Marcott, Senior Partner at Light Light Solutions and 2011 President of the Society of Applied Spectroscopy, on "Spatial Differentiation of Polymer Microdomains Using Nanoscale Infrared Spectroscopy"
Nano@Tech provides lunch only to those that have pre-registered by noon on Wednesday, March 16. To do so, visit http://www.nrc.gatech.edu/?q=content/nanotech-rsvp.
Abstract:
Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy have been combined in a single instrument capable of producing nanoscale spatial resolution IR spectra and images. This new capability enables the spectroscopic characterization of microdomain-forming polymers at levels not previously possible. Films of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyheanoate) were solution cast on ZnSe prisms, followed by melting and annealing to generate spherulites of different sizes. A tunable IR laser generating pulses of the order of 10 ns was used for excitation of the sample films. Short duration thermal waves, due to infrared absorption, were studied by monitoring the resulting excitation of the contact resonance modes of the AFM cantilever. Dramatic differences in the IR spectra are observed in the 1200-1300 cm-1 range as a function of position on a spatial scale of less than one micron. This spectral region is particularly sensitive to the polymer crystallinity, enabling the identification of crystalline and amorphous domains within a single spherulite of this copolymer.
The talk will focus on four key points:
Speaker Bio:
Curtis A. Marcott, Ph.D, is a Senior Partner at Light Light Solutions and 2011 president of the Society of Applied Spectroscopy. He is a past member of the editorial advisory boards of Analytical Chemistry and Vibrational Spectroscopy, the A-page advisory panel of Analytical Chemistry, and the board of managers of the Coblentz Society. A former research fellow at Procter & Gamble, he served as program committee chairman for the 2009 FACSS Conference and is presently the chairman of the program committee for ICAVS 2011.
