Equipment will be purchased to develop a dedicated near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) for the study of semiconductor and biological systems with the assistance of the Academic Research Infrastructure Program. The major components are NSOM control electronics and software, a spectrometer, DC and high frequency probes, semiconductor parameter analyzer, long wavelength detectors, a charge-coupled-device (CCD) detector, an inverted microscope foundation and optics, and a themoelectric mount and controller. The NSOM laboratory will be used to study: 1) sub-wavelength spectrocopic imaging of optoelectronic devices; 2) semiconductor material characterization from high resolution photoluminescence and tuned excitation; 3) local heating determination under operating conditions for optoelectronic devices with shear force microscopy; 4) fluoresence imaging of biological systems, including chromophore tagged DNA array structures; 5) local excitation and adsorption profiling of Bacteriorhodopsin to determine structure and functionality in thin films; 6) basic studies of new types of spectroscopy possible with large momentum of the evanescent fields in the near-field regime. A near-field scanning optical microscope will be developed for the study of semiconductor and biological systems. The semiconductor work will concentrate on the study of optoelectronic systems such as solid state lasers, while the biological work will study chromophore tagged DNA structures and thin films of Bacteriorhodopsin.
