N. Domingo, M. Checa, R. Millan, L. Collins, A. Ievlev, S. Soini, V. Merk, H. Li, M. Foston, R. Farahi, A. Passian, S. Jesse, K. Kelley
CNMS/ORNL,
United States
Keywords: NanoIR, ToF-SIMS, nanomechanics, IR absorption AFM, photoinduced force microscopy
Summary:
The study of mechanical properties of soft and bio-sourced materials at the nanoscale can be intrinsically challenging due to the wide range of Young Modulus to be sensed. Several modes from mechanical force curves to non-contact viscoelastic mapping or contact resonance frequency can be applied to cover for the different ranges as a function of the material stiffness. However, most of the biomechanical studies of interest require the combination of chemical sensitivity and nanomechanics to stablish a structural functional properties correlation at the nanoscale. In this regard, correlative nanomechanical and NanoIR absorption spectroscopy are a good approach, however, when performing IR-absorption spectroscopy in contact mode the chemical and mechanical response of the sample become intrinsically coupled. In this talk, I present the capabilities offered at CNMS, which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, for mechanochemical and biomechanical studies. I will review several examples of biomechanical studies with combined nanomechanical and NanoIR measurements of soft materials and biological tissues of different types of cellulose-based materials. Biological tissues display complex hierarchical structures, which require the nanoscale resolution of AFM to be morphologically and mechanically characterized. Taken together, this research enhances our understanding of structure-function relationships in hierarchical biological materials, particularly the nanomechanical response of fibrillar multi-component systems or mechanochemical changes in the mutant cell walls at a sub-cellular or nanoscale level. This work was supported by Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which is a US Department of Energy, Office of Science User Facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.