TY - CONF A1 - Radnik, Jörg A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Terborg, R. A1 - Kim, K.J. T1 - Elemental Composition and Thickness Determination of Thin Films by Electron Probe Microanalysis (EPMA) N2 - microscopy (AFM), or X-ray reflectometry. For the additional determination of thin film composition, techniques like X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) or mass spectrometry-based techniques can be used. An alternative non-destructive technique is electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). This method assumes a sample of homogenous (bulk) chemical composition, so that it cannot be usually applied to thin film samples. However, in combination with the thin film software StrataGEM, the thickness as well as the composition of such films on a substrate can be determined. This has been demonstrated for FeNi on Si and SiGe on Al2O3 film systems. For both systems five samples with different elemental composition and a reference were produced and characterised by Korean research institute KRISS using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), Rutherford backscattering (RBS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). These samples were used for an international round robin test. In 2021, a new and open-source thin film evaluation programme called BadgerFilm has been released. It can also be used to determine thin film composition and thickness from intensity ratios of the unknown sample and standards (k-ratios). In this contribution, we re-evaluated the data acquired for the FeNi and SiGe systems using the BadgerFilm software package and compared the resulting composition and thickness with the results of the established StrataGEM software and other reference methods. With the current evaluation, the BadgerFilm software shows good agreement with the composition and thickness calculated by StrataGEM and as the reference values provided by the KRISS. T2 - ECASIA 2022 CY - Limerick, Ireland DA - 29.05.2022 KW - Thin films KW - Electron Probe Microanalysis KW - Interlaboratory Comparisons PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-54963 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Radnik, Jörg A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Pellegrino, F. A1 - Maurino, V. T1 - Morpho-Chemical Characterisation of Me-TiO2 Nanoparticles for Enhanced Photocatalytical Activity N2 - The conversion of solar energy into electricity and solar fuels is of crucial importance for a green and sustainable future. Water splitting using semiconductor photo-catalysts is considered a sustainable method to produce clean hydrogen (H2) fuel. Nevertheless, H2 photo-production efficiency remains still low, although extensive research works to understand better the mechanisms of the Hydrogen Evolution Reaction (HER) and the Oxygen Evolution Reaction (OER) are being carried out. In this respect, TiO2 is a key photoactive material, usually employed with a co-catalyst deposited onto the surface to enhance charge carriers’ separation and catalyze surface charge transfer reactions. The deposition of a co-catalyst on the TiO2 nanoparticle surface represents one successful way to enhance the activity of the photocatalyst through a modification of its surface and redox properties. In this context, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy coupled with elemental analysis by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is fundamental for studying and understanding the effect of the nanoparticle morphology on the functional properties of shape-controlled TiO2 crystals (bipyramides, platelets, and elongated particles). Different types of metal-semiconductor combinations, TiO2 shapes and dopant metals (Ag, Pt, etc) and metal concentrations will be discussed. T2 - ECASIA 2022 CY - Limerick, Ireland DA - 29.05.2022 KW - Titania nanoparticles KW - Photocatalysis KW - Scanning electron microscopy KW - Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-54977 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sachse, René A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Kraehnert, R. A1 - Hertwig, Andreas T1 - Multilevel effective material approximation for modeling ellipsometric measurements on complex porous thin films JF - Advanced optical technologies N2 - Catalysts are important components in chemical processes because they lower the activation energy and thus determine the rate, efficiency and selectivity of a chemical reaction. This property plays an important role in many of today’s processes, including the electrochemical splitting of water. Due to the continuous development of catalyst materials, they are becoming more complex, which makes a reliable evaluation of physicochemical properties challenging even for modern analytical measurement techniques and industrial manufacturing. We present a fast, vacuum-free and non-destructive analytical approach using multi-sample spectroscopic ellipsometry to determine relevant material parameters such as film thickness, porosity and composition of mesoporous IrOx–TiOy films. Mesoporous IrOx–TiOy films were deposited on Si wafers by sol–gel synthesis, varying the composition of the mixed oxide films between 0 and 100 wt%Ir. The ellipsometric modeling is based on an anisotropic Bruggeman effective medium approximation (a-BEMA) to determine the film thickness and volume fraction of the material and pores. The volume fraction of the material was again modeled using a Bruggeman EMA to determine the chemical composition of the materials. The ellipsometric fitting results were compared with complementary methods, such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), electron probe microanalysis (EPMA) as well as environmental ellipsometric porosimetry (EEP). KW - Electrochemical catalysts KW - Mixed metal oxide KW - Multi-sample analysis KW - Spectroscopic ellipsometry KW - Thin mesoporous films PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-551026 DO - https://doi.org/10.1515/aot-2022-0007 SN - 2192-8584 SN - 2192-8576 VL - 11 IS - 3-4 (Topical issue: Ellipsometry) SP - 137 EP - 147 PB - De Gruyter CY - Berlin AN - OPUS4-55102 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Schmid, Thomas A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan T1 - Correlative Analysis by Raman and other Micro & Nanospectroscopic Imaging Techniques N2 - In the present talk the basics of the Raman spectroscopy and particularly of Raman microscopy are explained. Advantages and disadvantages of the method are highlighted through selected case studies. In the second part of the lecture examples of correlative imaging with electron, X-ray, ion and optical microscopies from micro- to the nanoscale are highlighted. T2 - Charisma School on Raman Harmonisation CY - Turin, Italy DA - 19.10.2022 KW - Raman KW - Correlative Imaging KW - Microscopy KW - Hyperspectral imaging PY - 2022 UR - https://amdgroup.inrim.it/events/vamas-sc-meeting-47/program-sc47 AN - OPUS4-56094 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Hülagü, Deniz A1 - Tobias, Charlie A1 - Gojani, Ardian B. A1 - Rurack, Knut A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Hülagü, Deniz T1 - Towards automated scanning electron microscopy image analysis of core-shell microparticles for quasi-3D determination of the surface roughness N2 - Core-shell (CS) particles have been increasingly used for a wide range of applications due to their unique properties by merging individual characteristics of the core and the shell materials. The functionality of the designed particles is strongly influenced by their surface roughness. Quantitative evaluation of the roughness of CS microparticles is, however, a challenging task for Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The SEM images contain two-dimensional (2D) information providing contour roughness data only from the projection of the particle in the horizontal plane. This study presents a practical procedure to achieve more information by tilting the sample holder, hence allowing images of different areas of a single particle to be recorded at different orientations under the same view angle. From the analysis of these images, quasi three-dimensional (3D) information is obtained. Three types of home-made particles were investigated: i) bare polystyrene (PS) particles, ii) PS particles decorated with a first magnetic iron oxide (Fe3O4) nanoparticle shell forming CS microbeads, iii) PS/Fe3O4 particles closed with a second silica (SiO2) shell forming core-shell-shell (CSS) microbeads. A series images of a single particle were taken with stepwise tilted sample holder up to 10° by an SEM with high-resolution and surface sensitive SE-InLens® mode. A reliable analysis tool has been developed by a script in Python to analyze SEM images automatically and to evaluate profile roughness quantitatively, for individual core-shell microparticles. Image analysis consists of segmentation of the images, identifying contour and the centre of the particle, and extracting the root mean squared roughness value (RMS-RQ) of the contour profile from the particle projection within a few seconds. The variation in roughness from batch-to-batch was determined with the purpose to set the method as a routine quality check procedure. Flow cytometry measurements provided complementary data. Measurement uncertainties associated to various particle orientations were also estimated. T2 - ICASS 5th International Conference on Applied Surface Science CY - Palma, Mallorca, Spain DA - 25.04.2022 KW - Core-shell particles KW - Image analysis KW - Roughness KW - Scanning electron microscopy PY - 2022 AN - OPUS4-54774 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Radnik, Jörg A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Jungnickel, H. A1 - Tentschert, J. A1 - Luch, A. A1 - Sogne, V. A1 - Maier, F. A1 - Burr, L. A1 - Schmid, D. A1 - Yoon, T.-H. A1 - Petters, R. A1 - Briffa, S.M. A1 - Valsami-Jones, E. T1 - Automation and Standardization—A Coupled Approach Towards Reproducible Sample Preparation Protocols for Nanomaterial Analysis JF - Molecules N2 - Whereas the characterization of nanomaterials using different analytical techniques is often highly automated and standardized, the sample preparation that precedes it causes a bottleneck in nanomaterial analysis as it is performed manually. Usually, this pretreatment depends on the skills and experience of the analysts. Furthermore, adequate reporting of the sample preparation is often missing. In this overview, some solutions for techniques widely used in nano-analytics to overcome this problem are discussed. Two examples of sample preparation optimization by au-tomation are presented, which demonstrate that this approach is leading to increased analytical confidence. Our first example is motivated by the need to exclude human bias and focuses on the development of automation in sample introduction. To this end, a robotic system has been de-veloped, which can prepare stable and homogeneous nanomaterial suspensions amenable to a variety of well-established analytical methods, such as dynamic light scattering (DLS), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), field-flow fractionation (FFF) or single-particle inductively coupled mass spectrometry (sp-ICP-MS). Our second example addresses biological samples, such as cells exposed to nanomaterials, which are still challenging for reliable analysis. An air–liquid interface has been developed for the exposure of biological samples to nanomaterial-containing aerosols. The system exposes transmission electron microscopy (TEM) grids under reproducible conditions, whilst also allowing characterization of aerosol composition with mass spectrometry. Such an approach enables correlative measurements combining biological with physicochemical analysis. These case studies demonstrate that standardization and automation of sample preparation setups, combined with appropriate measurement processes and data reduction are crucial steps towards more reliable and reproducible data. KW - Sample preparation KW - Automation KW - Nanomaterial analysis KW - Standardization PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-543988 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27030985 VL - 27 IS - 3 SP - 1 EP - 22 PB - MDPI AN - OPUS4-54398 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sachse, René A1 - Moor, Maëlle A1 - Kraehnert, Ralph A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Hertwig, Andreas T1 - Ellipsometry-based approach for the characterization of mesoporous thin films for H2 technologies JF - Advanced Engineering Materials N2 - Porous thin layer materials are gaining importance in different fields of technology and pose a challenge to the accurate determination of materials properties important for their function. In this work, we demonstrate a hybrid measurement technique using ellipsometry together with other independent methods for validation. Ellipsometry provides information about the porosity of different mesoporous films (PtRuNP/OMC = 45%; IrOx = 46%) as well as about the pore size (pore radius of ca. 5 nm for PtRuNP/OMC). In addition, the electronic structure of a material, such as intraband transitions of a mesoporous IrOx film, can be identified, which can be used to better understand the mechanisms of chemical processes. In addition, we show that ellipsometry can be used as a scalable imaging and visualization method for quality assurance in production. These require accurate and traceable measurements, with reference materials playing an important role that include porosity and other related properties. We show that our novel analytical methods are useful for improving analytical work in this entire field. KW - Porous materials KW - Electrolysis KW - Spectroscopic ellipsometry KW - Hybrid metrology measurement KW - Electron microscopy PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.202101320 SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - Wiley-VCH AN - OPUS4-53960 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hülagü, Deniz A1 - Tobias, Charlie A1 - Climent Terol, Estela A1 - Gojani, Ardian A1 - Rurack, Knut A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan T1 - Generalized Analysis Approach of the Profile Roughness by Electron Microscopy with the Example of Hierarchically Grown Polystyrene–Iron Oxide–Silica Core–Shell–Shell Particles JF - Advanced Engineering Materials N2 - The roughness as a property of core–shell (CS) microparticles plays a key role in their functionality. Quantitative evaluation of the roughness of CS microparticles is, however, a challenging task with approaches using electron microscopy images being scarce and showing pronounced differences in terms of methodology and results. This work presents a generalized method for the reliable roughness determination of nonplanar specimens such as CS particles from electron microscopic images, the method being robust and reproducible with a high accuracy. It involves a self-written software package (Python) that analyzes the recorded images, extracts corresponding data, and calculates the roughness based on the deviation of the identified contour. Images of single particles are taken by a dual mode scanning electron microscopy (SEM) setup which permits imaging of the same field-of-view of the sample with high resolution and surface sensitive in SE InLens mode as well as in transmission mode (TSEM). Herein, a new type of polystyrene core–iron oxide shell–silica shell particles is developed to serve as a set of lower micrometer-sized study objects with different surface roughness; the analysis of their images by the semiautomatic workflow is demonstrating that the particles’ profile roughness can be quantitatively obtained. KW - Core–shell particles KW - Image analysis KW - Nanoparticles KW - Roughness KW - SEM KW - transmission mode PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-542576 DO - https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.202101344 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Wiley-VCH AN - OPUS4-54257 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan A1 - Hörenz, Christoph A1 - Pellegrino, F. A1 - Maurino, V. A1 - Durande, B. A1 - Taché, O. T1 - Nanoparticle size, shape, and concentration measurement at once – two VAMAS pre-standardization projects ready to start N2 - A case study on the TEM analysis of the size and shape distribution of TiO2 bipyramidal nanoparticles prepared on TEM grids was included in the recently published ISO standard ISO 21363. It was agreed to organize at a later stage a second inter-lab comparison with the nanoparticles distributed to the participants as a liquid suspension. Protocols for uniform nanoparticle deposition on suited supports developed and optimized within the EMPIR nPSize project are also prepared to be distributed. For this, we have chosen the VAMAS platform (www.vamas.org) which offers an excellent international infrastructure of laboratories with high competence in nanoparticle measurement. The VAMAS technical working area dedicated to nanoparticle measurement is TWA 34 ‘Nanoparticle populations’. For this type of nanoparticles, the size and shape distributions are the primary parameters to be reported. Due to the good deposition protocols developed, an automated image analysis is enabled (in contrast to the manual analysis of irregular TiO2 nanoparticles. In parallel with the TiO2 nanoparticle exercise, two spherical SiO2 nanoparticle samples with bi-modal size distributions (nominal relative number concentrations of 1:1 and 10:1) are prepared for a second VAMAS inter-lab comparison. Here, the nanoparticle concentration is the primary parameter to be measured. For the imaging methods it is targeted to measure the relative nanoparticle concentrations of the two modes. For the absolute nanoparticle concentration to be measured by imaging methods it is necessary to control the volume of the liquid suspension deposited on the substrate and to obtain such a homogeneous nanoparticle deposition on the substrate which allows to count (or extrapolate) all the deposited particles. T2 - Microscopy and Microanalysis 2021 CY - Online meeting DA - 01.08.2021 KW - Nanoparticles KW - Electron microscopy KW - VAMAS KW - Inter-laboratory comparison KW - TiO2 KW - SiO2 PY - 2021 AN - OPUS4-53065 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hülagü, Deniz A1 - Tobias, Charlie A1 - Gojani, Ardian A1 - Rurack, Knut A1 - Hodoroaba, Vasile-Dan T1 - Analysis of the profile roughness of core-shell microparticles by electron microscopy JF - Microscopy and Microanalysis N2 - A particle roughness analysis tool, based on electron microscopy images (SEM and TEM). The influence of various parameters on the calculated roughness was also investigated: the setting of the proper threshold, accelerating voltage, etc. The samples were gradually tilted to extend imaging information of more than only one projection. Furthermore, the measurement uncertainty of the profile roughness of particles associated to various orientations was estimated. KW - Core-shell particles KW - Electron microscopy KW - Image processing KW - MamaLoCa KW - Particle Characterization KW - Roughness PY - 2021 DO - https://doi.org/10.1017/S1431927621007285 VL - 27 IS - Suppl. 1 SP - 2002 EP - 2004 PB - Cambridge University Press AN - OPUS4-53123 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -