Cryogenic Near-Field Microscopy and Spectroscopy of strongly-correlated materials at the Nanoscale

We will introduce the first commercially-available, cryogenic near-field optical microscope (cryo-neaSNOM) that is capable of performing optical microscopy and spectroscopy at cryogenic temperatures (<10K) with 10nanometer spatial resolution. The cryo-neaSNOM will enable unique and valuable insights into modern nano-structured materials in physical, chemical, and biological science. At cryogenic temperatures, this microscope has great potential to unravel the origin of peculiar quantum phenomena in strongly-correlated materials, e.g. superconductivity, charge-density-waves, or insulator-to-metal transitions. Since all these effects are extremely sensitive to their local, microscopic environment a detailed optical study of the materials at the nanoscale using near-field optical microscopy while simultaneously controlling the temperature will grant the cryo-neaSNOM a complete new access to understand the behavior of these material systems. In this presentation we will introduce the basic principles of near-field microscopy for imaging and spectroscopy with 10nanometer spatial resolution. In addition we demonstrate the extension of near-field microscopy to cryogenic temperatures with an overview on possible applications as well as first demonstrations.