TY - CONF A1 - Mrkwitschka, Paul A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Pellegrino, Francesco A1 - Rossi, Andrea A1 - Jones, Elliot T1 - Towards automated analysis of the lateral dimensions of graphene oxide flakes N2 - Graphene and graphene-oxide (GO) are advanced materials which – similar to other graphene-related 2D materials (GR-2M) - are already used for instance in catalysis processes, biomedical applications, in inks and resins, or as composite materials for the aviation industry. The lateral/structural characterization of graphene oxide (GO) flakes is a challenging task, with steps like sample preparation, representative image selection and exact determination of the particle size distribution of well-defined size and shape descriptors being crucial for an accurate analysis. To ensure that safe-by-design principles are met within the various application fields, the commercial material must be thoroughly characterized and specified through well-known and standardized procedures. GO flakes with different degrees of complexity were selected to assess the requirements for an accurate evaluation of their physico-chemical properties. These samples show inherent features with complex nanoscale characteristics such as porosity and edge roughness; further, the lateral size (quantified via equivalent circular diameter (ECD), minimum Feret and maximum Feret) of isolated and overlapping particles deposited on a substrate span over several orders of magnitude (nano to micron scale). The samples showed different degrees of agglomeration (and possible aggregation) with sizes ranging between submicron to a few tens of micrometers. One focus is the automated segmentation and evaluation of images obtained by electron microscopy. The GO samples appear translucent with well-defined contrast between single and overlapping flakes both with the secondary electron detector of type InLens as well as with SEM in the transmission mode (STEM) utilizing a dedicated sample holder. To this end it is of utmost importance for the accurate image segmentation to carefully select thresholds both manually and through semi-automatic approaches using well-known threshold algorithms such as “IsoData” and pre-defined segmentation applications such as the ParticleSizer software package. Further specific challenges in identifying and extracting key features of selected graphene oxide flakes are being discussed and approaches towards accurate and representative characterization are presented. T2 - E-MRS 2024 Spring Meeting CY - Strasbourg, France DA - 27.05.2024 KW - Graphene /-oxide KW - Morphology KW - Electron microscopy KW - Imaging KW - Advanced materials PY - 2024 AN - OPUS4-60435 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -