Molecular Vista

Molecular Vista designs, develops, and provides tools that allow its customers to probe and understand matter at the molecular level through quantitative visualization. Its first product, VistaScope, provides a flexible hybrid atomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical spectroscopy platform for studying material & biological systems with chemical specificity with nanometer spatial resolution. VistaScope is equipped with patented photo-induced force microscopy (PiFM) where the photo-induced polarization of the sample is measured directly in the near-field by detecting the time-integrated force between the tip and the sample. Imaging infrared wavelengths specific to different chemical entities, PiFM can resolve the nanometer-scale distribution of each chemical species in diverse multi-phase and multi-component systems, thereby revealing an unprecedented and spectacular molecular vista to the researcher.

VistaScope is built upon an ultra stable and flexible optical platform with top, bottom, and side illumination/collection (all with high NA) capabilities and can be offered equipped with complementary techniques such as scattering SNOM (Vista-SNOM) and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (Vista-TERS).

Molecular Vista was founded by two industry veterans, Prof. Kumar Wickramasinghe (UC Irvine and formerly with IBM Research) and Dr. Sung Park (co-founder of Park Scientific Instruments).