The use of infrared spectroscopic techniques to characterize nanomaterials and nanostructures: A review.

Recent advances in nanotechnology have opened a lot of new possibilities for nanomaterials application in wide variety of industrial, pharmaceutical, medicinal and environmental applications. This review aims to description of various Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR)-based spectroscopic techniques suitable to characterize (i) different types of nanomaterials and (ii) various macroscopic samples at their nanoscale. In the introductory section, nanomaterials are classified according to their crucial properties, i.e. chemical composition, size and surface morphology. Application of traditional FTIR techniques, such as Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR), Diffuse Reflection (DRIFT) and infrared micro (spectro)scopy, for characterization of nanomaterials and nanostructures is compared with novel optical nanoscopic techniques derived from scanning probe microscopy which enable to overcome the diffraction limit and to characterize nanomaterials at molecular scale.