Back to Search
Start Over
Virtual substrate method for nanomaterials characterization
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Nature Communications, Vol 8, Iss 1, Pp 1-9 (2017)
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Nature Publishing Group, 2017.
-
Abstract
- Characterization techniques available for bulk or thin-film solid-state materials have been extended to substrate-supported nanomaterials, but generally non-quantitatively. This is because the nanomaterial signals are inevitably buried in the signals from the underlying substrate in common reflection-configuration techniques. Here, we propose a virtual substrate method, inspired by the four-point probe technique for resistance measurement as well as the chop-nod method in infrared astronomy, to characterize nanomaterials without the influence of underlying substrate signals from four interrelated measurements. By implementing this method in secondary electron (SE) microscopy, a SE spectrum (white electrons) associated with the reflectivity difference between two different substrates can be tracked and controlled. The SE spectrum is used to quantitatively investigate the covering nanomaterial based on subtle changes in the transmission of the nanomaterial with high efficiency rivalling that of conventional core-level electrons. The virtual substrate method represents a benchmark for surface analysis to provide ‘free-standing' information about supported nanomaterials.<br />Quantitative characterization of supported nanomaterials is challenging, because the nanomaterial signals cannot easily be deconvoluted from those of the substrate. Here, the authors introduce an inventive approach to overcome this problem for electron-based surface analysis techniques.
- Subjects :
- Multidisciplinary
Materials science
Science
ComputingMethodologies_IMAGEPROCESSINGANDCOMPUTERVISION
General Physics and Astronomy
Nanotechnology
02 engineering and technology
General Chemistry
Substrate (printing)
Electron
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
01 natural sciences
Reflectivity
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Secondary electrons
Article
Characterization (materials science)
Nanomaterials
Transmission (telecommunications)
0103 physical sciences
Microscopy
010306 general physics
0210 nano-technology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20411723
- Volume :
- 8
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Communications
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....750ca4dd3ebb6c609556222c63173a06