Coupling synchrotron source to FTIR spectrometer beats diffraction limit

Hooking a commercial Fouriertransform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer and microscope to an IR line of the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory (Long Island, NY) gives researchers a tool to beat the diffraction limit. The bright, small, multiwavelength synchrotron beam allows spectra to be obtained from samples as small as 4 µm wide without the diffraction effects that typically make conventional measurements of features smaller than 10 µm unfeasible. A SpectraTech (Shelton, CT) IRµs FTIR microanalysis system coupled to the synchrotron source provides enough brightness to give a high signaltonoise ratio in short measurement times; the spectra tend to also have lower noise because of the lack of thermal noise common to other IR sources.