Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/L70400/01
Title:	ANALYSIS OF NEAR-FIELD OPTICAL CONTRAST: CHEMICAL SENSING AT THE NANO-SCALE
Principal Investigator:	Williams, Professor PM
Other Investigators:	Roberts, Professor C Tendler, Professor S Smith, Professor D A M Davies, Professor M
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:	Renishaw
Department:	Sch of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Organisation:	University of Nottingham
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 October 1998	Ends:	30 September 2001	Value (£):	51,377
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Analytical Science
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
Designed as a three-year Project Studentship, the programme of research will commence with a detailed investigation of the noise characteristics of the instrumentation within the laboratory and the performance of both commercial and specially-fabricated NSOM probes. Standard NSOM samples will be designed, including fabricated silicon surfaces and polymer blends. These standards will include optically uniform samples of a high topography, and topographic and chemically flat samples with optically different transmission domains. Using these standards, the optical performance of NSOM probes will be measured and, using software developed within the laboratory, the physical shape and the light intensity around the apertures will be derived. By analysis of the aperture shape and point of discontinuity in the photon density a method will be developed which can differentiate between near and far field excitation and permit the far field excitation and permit the far-field component to be removed. With knowledge of these optical components application of signal deconvulution methods, developed within the Laboratory, to NSOM and spectroscopy data will be explored. specifically, the effect of field shape on selection rules for electronic and vibrational spectroscopy will be investigated. This may reveal the ability to access new vibational transitions in Raman spectroscopy and provide a new nanometre-scale chemical analysis.
Key Findings
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Organisation Website:	http://www.nottingham.ac.uk