TY - CONF A1 - Hörenz, Christoph T1 - Improved Sample Preparation for the Analysis of Nanoparticles by Electron Microscopy N2 - Various promising sample preparation procedures aiming to avoid drying artifacts and guarantee homogeneously distributed NP samples for imaging techniques like TEM, SEM or AFM are presented. This involves retarded drying in an environment of high relative humidity as well as spin coating or freeze drying of the sample on the substrate. Depending on the type of the NPs, different techniques are successful in obtaining homogenous sample deposition. Simple drying at ambient conditions often results in heavily agglomerated NPs densely packed in coffee ring traces. Retardation of the drying speed in an environment of high relative humidity, however, yields homogeneous NP deposition in the case of bimodal SiO2 and bimodal gold NP’s. In contrast, a sample of bipyramidal TiO2, heavily agglomerated when commonly dried, is successfully dispersed by spin coating the suspension on the substrate. The analysis of the particle size distribution of the bimodal silica and gold samples yielded number ratios resembling the nominal number ratios. The reliable measurement of the NP concentration of polydisperse samples by electron microscopy, even if relative, is new and of special relevance because up to now only the size of the particles, i.e. the abscissa of the PSD, can be measured reliably. T2 - EMPIR nPSize Training Course "Metrology for Measurement of Nanoparticle Size by Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy" CY - Online meeting DA - 27.10.2020 KW - Nanoparticles KW - Particle size distribution KW - Sample peparation KW - Electron microscopy PY - 2020 AN - OPUS4-51716 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -