The National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) is a corporation of inter-university research institutes in Japan including the Institute of Molecular Sciences (IMS) and the National Astronomical Observatory (NAOJ). Each year, NINS presents the Young Researcher Award to outstanding early-career researchers affiliated with or who have collaborated with its institutes. In 2025, Dr. Akitoshi Shiotari was selected as an award winner for his exceptional achievements in single-molecule photochemistry, [more...]

Scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) is a robust method for visualizing the optical response of surfaces with a spatial resolution down to 10 nm. Near-field signal detection relies on lock-in harmonic demodulation referring to tip oscillation driven by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The improvement of the spatial resolution requires stabilizing the sub-nanometer-scale tip-sample junction and improving the duty cycle of the near-field detection using a low tapping amplitude. [more...]