TY - JOUR
T1 - Impregnation of carbon black for the examination of colloids using TEM
AU - Gontard, Lionel C.
AU - Knappett, Benjamin R.
AU - Wheatley, Andrew E.H.
AU - Chang, Shery L.Y.
AU - Fernández, Asunción
N1 - Funding Information:
L.C.G. thanks the European Commission (project REGPOT-CT-2011–285895-Al-NANOFUNC), Johnson Matthey Technology Center (JMTC) for providing carbon black and Pt/carbon black samples, and Dr. Jordi Arbiol for providing Au@thiocoraline samples. Financial support from MINECO ( CTQ2012-32519 ), Junta de Andalucía ( PE2012-TEP862 ) and EU FSE are also acknowledged.
PY - 2014/9
Y1 - 2014/9
N2 - Nanoparticles are frequently synthesised as colloids, dispersed in solvents such as water, hexane or ethanol. For their characterisation by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a drop of colloid is typically deposited on a carbon support and the solvent allowed to evaporate. However, this method of supporting the nanoparticles reduces the visibility of fine atomic details, particularly for carbonaceous species, due to interference from the 2-dimensional carbon support at most viewing angles. We propose here the impregnation of a 3 dimensional carbon black matrix that has been previously deposited on a carbon film as an alternative means of supporting colloidal nanoparticles, and show examples of the application of this method to advanced TEM techniques in the analysis of monometallic, core@shell and hybrid nanoparticles with carbon-based shells.
AB - Nanoparticles are frequently synthesised as colloids, dispersed in solvents such as water, hexane or ethanol. For their characterisation by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), a drop of colloid is typically deposited on a carbon support and the solvent allowed to evaporate. However, this method of supporting the nanoparticles reduces the visibility of fine atomic details, particularly for carbonaceous species, due to interference from the 2-dimensional carbon support at most viewing angles. We propose here the impregnation of a 3 dimensional carbon black matrix that has been previously deposited on a carbon film as an alternative means of supporting colloidal nanoparticles, and show examples of the application of this method to advanced TEM techniques in the analysis of monometallic, core@shell and hybrid nanoparticles with carbon-based shells.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.carbon.2014.05.006
DO - 10.1016/j.carbon.2014.05.006
M3 - Letter
AN - SCOPUS:84901781199
SN - 0008-6223
VL - 76
SP - 464
EP - 468
JO - Carbon
JF - Carbon
ER -