Infrared nanospectroscopy at cryogenic temperatures and on semiconductor nanowires

This PhD thesis concentrates on scattering scanning near-field infrared microscopy (s-SNIM) which utilizes the radiation from the free-electron laser (FEL) at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. The FEL is an intense, narrow-band radiation source, tunable from the mid- to far-infrared spectral range (5 meV to 250 meV). The s-SNIM technique enables infrared microscopy and spectroscopy with a wavelength-independent spatial resolution of about 10nm. The first part demonstrates the extension of s-SNIM at the FEL towards cryogenic temperatures as low as 5K. To this end, we show the functionality of our low-temperature s-SNIM apparatus on different samples such as Au, structured Si/SiO2, as well as the multiferroic material gallium vanadium sulfide (GaV4S8). The latter material recently attracted a lot of interest since it hosts a Néel-type skyrmion lattice – a periodic array of spin vortices. Below T = 42K, GaV4S8 undergoes a structural phase transition and then forms ferroelectric domains, which we can map out by low-tempererature s-SNIM. Notably, we found a strong impact on the ferroelectric domains upon infrared irradiation, which we further utilize to calibrate the local heat contribution of the focused infrared beam beneath the s-SNIM probe.
The second part of this thesis contains comprehensive s-SNIM investigations of high-quality semiconductor nanowires (NWs) rown by molecular beam epitaxy. Such NWs are promising building blocks for fast (opto-)electronic nanodevices, amongst thers due to their high carrier mobility. We have examined highly doped GaAs/InGaAs core/shell NWs and observed a strong and spectrally sharp plasmonic resonance at about hw = 125 meV, using a continuous wave CO2 laser for probing. If we probe the same NWs utilizing the intense, pulsed FEL radiation, we observe a pronounced redshift to hw < 100 meV and a broading of the plasmonic response. This nonlinear response is most likely induced by heating of the electron gas upon irradiation by the strong FEL pulses. Our observations open up the possibility to actively induce and observe non-equilibrium states in s-SNIM directly by the mid-infrared beam. Beside the nonlinear effect, we prepared and measured cross sections of both homogeneously-doped and modulation-doped core/shell NWs.