Cryogenic Ultrafast Scattering-type Terahertz-probe Optical-pump Microscopy (CUSTOM)

The CUSTOM facility is a joint facility between the Henry Royce Institute, University of Manchester and National Physical Laboratory (NPL). It consists of a suite of scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) systems that can operate from the visible to the THz range. The systems offer material characterisation on nanometre length scales with ultrafast temporal resolution, enabling 2D mapping of local dielectric function and time-resolved dynamics with nanometre spatial resolution. The capabilities are:

- Low temperature (down to 10K) and room-temperature operation

- Nanometre (~30 nm) spatial resolution

- Time-resolved detection (~80 fs temporal resolution)

- Operation in the MIR (5 – 15 um), THz (0.1 – 4THz), visible (532 nm, 685 nm) and NIR (1064 nm, 1550 nm) frequency ranges

- Flexibility to couple custom light sources to SNOM systems.

- Simultaneous imaging of amplitude, phase and topography

- Hyperspectral mapping

- Surface-sensitivity

- Tapping-mode operation to extract near-field information and perform tomography (3D mapping)

Applications of these systems include:

- 3D conductivity mapping of semiconductor materials and devices
- near-field mapping of metamaterial structures at telecom wavelengths
- chemical composition mapping (nano-FTIR spectroscopy) of surface layers
- nanoscale imaging and spectroscopy of biological cells