Maryland team maps IR-driven surface motion with torsional force microscopy in Nature Communications

University of Maryland researchers describe infrared torsional force microscopy, or TFM-IR, a method that images how a surface stretches and warps under infrared light with near-nanometer precision, phys.org reported on a Nature Communications paper. Physics professor Min Ouyang and graduate student Yonatan Gazit combined atomic force microscopy with a tip that twists back and forth while infrared laser pulses heat the sample. By choosing pulse rates, the tip can pick out vertical or horizontal motion, overcoming a limit of conventional tapping AFM that mainly senses height. The credit line lists DOI 10.1038/s41467-026-74654-0. As a demonstration on mica, the team detected four vibration patterns and mapped horizontal and vertical responses across a few-nanometer mica nanobubble, matching simulations of strain in the bump. The approach aims at quantum materials whose properties vary over nanometer distances that ordinary optical microscopes cannot resolve.