Nanoparticles Viewed in 3-D
DAVIS, Calif., Nov. 28, 2006 -- A new x-ray microscope has been devised that can, for the first time, examine nanoparticles -- materials smaller in scale than one billionth of a meter -- in three dimensions. The device could be used to make better materials for electronics, optics and biotechnology applications.
Subhash Risbud, professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of California, Davis; John Miao of UCLA and colleagues from Japan and Taiwan published a paper in Physical Review Letters on Nov. 21 [See abstract below] describing the new microscope and technique.
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has traditionally been used to study nanomaterials, but because electrons do not penetrate far into materials, the sample preparation procedure is usually complicated and destructive. Another disadvantage is that TEM only provides two-dimensional images.
The new method shines a powerful x-ray source onto a nanoparticle and collects the x-rays scattered from the sample. Then computers construct a three-dimensional image from that data. The microscope can resolve details down to 17 nm, or a few atoms across.
Using the new microscope, Risbud and colleagues were able to take detailed 3-D pictures of a quantum dot of gallium nitride, and also to study the structure inside it at a nanometer scale. Quantum dots are tiny particles that change their optical and electronic properties, depending on the particle size. Gallium nitride quantum dots could be used in blue-green lasers or flat-panel displays.
"The present work hence opens the door for comprehensive, nondestructive and quantitative 3-D imaging of a wide range of samples including porous materials, semiconductors, quantum dots and wires, inorganic nanostructures, granular materials, biomaterials, and cellular structure," they wrote in the article.
photonics.com
Abstract:
Three-Dimensional GaN-Ga2O3 Core Shell Structure Revealed by X-Ray Diffraction Microscopy
Jianwei Miao,1 Chien-Chun Chen,2 Changyong Song,1 Yoshinori Nishino,3 Yoshiki Kohmura,3 Tetsuya Ishikawa,3 Damien Ramunno-Johnson,1 Ting-Kuo Lee,2 and Subhash H. Risbud4
1Department of Physics and Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA 2Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taipei, 11529, Taiwan 3SPring-8/RIKEN, 1-1-1, Kouto, Mikazuki, Sayo-gun, Hyogo 679-5198, Japan 4Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Davis, California 95616, USA
(Received 9 July 2006; published 21 November 2006)
In combination of direct phase retrieval of coherent x-ray diffraction patterns with a novel tomographic reconstruction algorithm, we, for the first time, carried out quantitative 3D imaging of a heat-treated GaN particle with each voxel corresponding to 17×17×17 nm3. We observed the platelet structure of GaN and the formation of small islands on the surface of the platelets, and successfully captured the internal GaN-Ga2O3 core shell structure in three dimensions. This work opens the door for nondestructive and quantitative imaging of 3D morphology and 3D internal structure of a wide range of materials at the nanometer scale resolution that are amorphous or possess only short-range atomic organization.
©2006 The American Physical Society
URL: link.aps.org
doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.215503
PACS: 61.10.Nz, 42.30.Rx, 42.30.Wb, 61.46.-w |
