Imaging morphological, structural, chemical, and optical properties of material during surface processes is critical for catalytic and optical applications of the materials. In this talk, I will present the development and application of imaging techniques to understand how the molecular environment affects various properties of MoS2 and doped tungsten oxide, phase transition of single micro-sized TiO2 crystals, and synthesis of aluminum nanosheets.

In the second part of my talk, I will present our recent development of plasmonic fiber
nano-probes for nanoscale chemical imaging. The proposed Fiber-based Tip-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (F-TERS) combines the spatial (<1 nm) and chemical resolution of TERS with the ease of use of Scanning Near-field Optical
Microscopy. F-TERS can operate in virtually any gaseous and liquid environment, enabling new avenues of nanoscale chemical data collection from any sample analysis in most real-world environments. I will report the design,
fabrication, and characterization of various photonic-plasmonic probes.