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This paper reports a systematic study into the effect of nitrogen on iron-catalyzed graphitization of biomass. Chitin, chitosan, N-acetylglucosamine, gelatin and glycine were selected to represent nitrogen-rich saccharides and amino-acid/polypeptide biomass precursors. The materials were pyrolyzed with an iron catalyst to produce carbons with a wide range of chemical and structural features such as mesoporosity and nitrogen-doping. Many authors have reported the synthesis of nitrogen-doped carbons by pyrolysis and these have diverse applications. However, this is the first systematic study of how nitrogen affects pyrolysis of biomass and importantly the catalytic graphitization step. Our data demonstrates that nitrogen inhibits graphitization but that some nitrogen survives the catalytic graphitization process to become incorporated into various chemical environments in the carbon product.
The growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer of poly(2-vinylpiridine) on silicon oxide is studied using a leaching technique which is based on the Guiselin brushes approach. The adsorbed layer is grown from a 200 nm thick P2VP film for several annealing time periods at different annealing temperatures. Then the film is solvent-leached, and the height of the remaining adsorbed layer is measured by atomic force microscopy. At the lowest annealing temperature only a linear growth regime is observed, followed by a plateau. Here, the molecular mobility of segments is too low to allow for a logarithmic growth. At higher annealing temperatures, both linear and logarithmic growth regimes are observed, followed by a plateau. At even higher annealing temperatures, the growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer changes.
A linear growth followed by logarithmic growth kinetics is observed for short annealing time periods. For longer annealing time periods, an upturn of the growth kinetics is observed. At the highest annealing temperature, only a logarithmic growth regime is found. The change in the growth kinetics is discussed by an alteration in the structure of the adsorbed layer. Moreover, the interaction between the polymer segments and the substrate becomes weaker due to both enthalpic and entropic effects. Therefore, at high annealing temperatures the polymer segments might more easily desorb from the substrate.
The glass transition behavior of thin films of poly(bisphenol A carbonate) (PBAC) was studied employing ellipsometry. The glass transition temperature increases with the reduction of the film thickness. This result is attributed to the formation of an adsorbed layer with a reduced mobility compared to bulk PBAC. Therefore, for the first time, the growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer of PBAC was investigated, prepared by leaching samples from a 200 nm thin film which were annealed for several times at three different temperatures. The thickness of each prepared adsorbed layer was measured by multiple scans using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Additionally, an unannealed sample was measured. Comparison of the measurements of the unannealed and the annealed samples provides proof of a pre-growth regime for all annealing temperatures which was not observed for other polymers. For the lowest annealing temperature after the pre-growth stage only a growth regime with a linear time dependence is observed. For higher annealing temperatures the growth kinetics changes from a linear to a logarithmic growth regime at a critical time. At the longest annealing times the films showed signs of dewetting where segments of the adsorbed film were removed from the substrate (dewetting by desorption). The dependence of the surface roughness of the PBAC surface on annealing time also confirmed that the films annealed at highest temperatures for the longest times desorbed from the substrate.
(Pre)Standardisation and Metrology in Microbeam Analysis – Ongoing Activities and Opportunities
(2023)
The presentation addresses the current ongoing projects as well as the gaps and opportunities in microbeam analysis within ISO/TC 202 Microbeam Analysis standardisation body and in-liaison Technical Working Areas (TWAs) at the pre-standardization platform of VAMAS (Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards).
Electron probe microanalysis (EPMA)is a non-destructive technique which assumes a sample of homogenous (bulk) chemical composition and can, therefore, not be used for thin film samples. However, in combination with one of the possible thin film software packages, 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 the Korean research institute KRISS using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), Rutherford backscattering (RBS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
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 provided by the KRISS.
These results between two well-known layered material systems analysed with available conventional EMPA approaches (STRATAGEM and direct thickness measurement by TEM) and a new one (BADGERFILM) proves that reliable non-destructive thin film analysis is possible. In this way, we validate the performance of the new software, which is not at all self-explanatory for such
complex quantification algorithms lying behind the final quantified results.
Following points are presented and discussed: i) nPSize as an EMPIR project on the nanoparticle size and shape distribution of (more) complex particles including sample preparation and machine learning approaches; ii) parallel development of ISO 21363 (PSSD by TEM), ISO 19749 (PSSD by SEM), ISO 22292 (3D TEM), ISO 52408 (NP Prep for AFM and EM), iii) VAMAS and pre-standardisation, TWA 34 „Nanoparticle Populations“ with two nPSize ILC projects P15 & P16 – results to be published and integrated in ISO 21363 (PSSD by TEM); iv) Remaining challenges: platelets, 2D materials (TiO2 and GR2M); v) Reference data sets as part of a complete Characterisation Workflow.
Photopolymer derived carbon grows in popularity, yet the range in available feature sizes is limited. Here we focus on expanding the field to low surface to volume ratio (SVR) structures. We describe a high temperature acrylic photopolymerizable precursor with FTIR and DSC and develop a thermal inert-gas treatment for producing architected carbon in the mm scale with SVR of 1.38 x10-3 μm-1. Based on TGA and MS, we distinguish two thermal regimes with activation energies of ~79 and 169 kJ mol-1, which we reason with mechanisms during the polymer’s morphologic conversion between 300 - 500 °C. The temperature range of the major dimensional shrinkage (300-440 °C, 50%) does not match the range of the largest alteration in elemental composition (440-600 °C, O/C 0.25-0.087%). The insights lead to an optimized thermal treatment with an initial ramp (2 °C min-1 to 350 °C), isothermal hold (14h), post hold ramp (0.5 °C min-1 to 440 °C) and final ramp (10 °C min-1 to 1000 °C). The resulting carbon structures are dimensionally stable, non-porous at the μm scale, and comprise an unprecedented variation in feature sizes (from mm to μm scale). The findings shall advance architected carbon to industrially relevant scales.
In the present paper we show an approach of measuring large numbers of nanoparticles in a single scan TKD. TiO2 anatase nanoparticles (NP) of bipyramidal shape were deposited on standard carbon grid used for TEM. The procedure used promoted formation of NP ‘monolayer’ islands with uniform distribution of NPs on the carbon surface which allowed mapping of large number of nanoparticles in the single island.
Collection of whole map covering ~2800 nanoparticles took nearly 20 minutes. Inverse pole figure color coded map indicates that the NPs are either lying on a {101} facet (within 10° range around perfect {101} parallel to the carbon surface orientation) on the carbon film or are lying on a {100} facet (within 10° range around the perfect {100} parallel to the carbon surface orientation). Very unlikely was the NP orientation standing on a {001} face. The NPs size distribution described as equivalent circle diameter (ECD) has been also evaluated and the mean NP ECD was 59 nm with standard deviation of 15 nm, i.e. in good agreement with electron microscopy or AFM results.
This study shows high potential of the technique for crystalline NPs analysis with respect to geometrical orientation of the particles on the substrate. With known orientation, the 3D dimensional characterisation of such non-spherical NPs becomes possible from 2D projection electron micrographs. Moreover, the NP size distribution can be easily extracted. Superior accuracies down to 1-2 nm are achievable. The approach is applicable also on thin lamellae extracted from particulate (or mesoporous) layers.
Dose enhancement by gold nanoparticles (AuNP) increases the biological effectiveness of radiation damage in biomolecules and tissue.
To apply them effectively during cancer therapy their influence on the locally delivered dose has to be determined. Hereby, the AuNP locations strongly influence the energy deposit in the nucleus, mitochondria, membrane and the cytosol of the targeted cells. In this work, two newly developed continuous and discrete-geometric models for simulations of AuNP in cells are presented. We apply the presented models in Monte-Carlo particle scattering simulations to characterize the energy deposit in cell organelles by radioactive 198AuNP. They emit beta and gamma rays and are therefore considered for applications
with solid tumors. Differences in local dose enhancement between randomly distributed and nucleus targeted nanoparticles are compared.
Hereby nucleus targeted nanoparticels showed a strong local dose enhancement in the radio sensitive nucleus.
An overview on the VAMAS technical working areas (TWA) and projects where Germany is active has been given. The role of VAMAS as an international pre-standardisation platform, including its intense collaboration with international bodies ISO, CEN, OECD and CCQM and national organizations like DIN has been highlighted.
Interactions between a polymer and a substrate interface play a vital role in understanding the improvement in thin film material properties as well as serving as a model for nanocomposites. For any non-repulsive polymer-substrate interactions, polymer segments form an irreversibly adsorbed layer and show a slowdown in the glassy dynamics and thus an increase in the thermal glass transition temperature compared to the bulk-like values. The growth kinetics of the adsorbed layer obey a two-step mechanism: formation of immobilized layer with flat segmental conformations and a loosely bound layer with stretched chains pinned to the surface. Here the adsorbed layer was studied for: poly (bisphenol-A carbonate) (PBAC) and polysulfone (PSU), two bulky polymers containing a functional group (phenyl ring) in the backbone and compared to poly (2-vinyl pyridine) (P2VP), where the backbone is a vinyl-derivative and the functional group (pyridine) is in the side chain. The growth kinetics for PBAC and PSU were found to deviate from the well-known mechanism, observed for polymers such as P2VP. Atomic force microscopy and ellipsometry were used for this investigation and was additionally supported by broadband dielectric spectroscopy.
Today there are hundreds of products available containing silver in form of nanoparticles, so-called nanosilver. This situation and the foreseeable future growing market of nanosilver will supposedly cause an increased release of silver into the environment. In this way, silver can be also incorporated into the human body and accumulated in different organs, which can be toxic or at least an unknown risk to human health. For these reasons, it is important to constantly study materials containing silver nanoparticles, their production, application in products and technical processes, dissemination of silver nanoparticles in the environment, and effects on humans and nature. The state-of-the-art nanoparticle size and concentration characterization are illustrated in an extensive interlaboratory comparison. To guarantee the traceability of measurements and to secure the comparison of results of different analytical methods, reference materials (RM) and certified reference materials (CRM) are essential. As a case study, the objective of the presented project was to provide an aqueous suspension of silver nanoparticles as a reference material with a nominal diameter below 10 nm for application in the determination of the size and concentration of nanoparticles in an aqueous surrounding. Measurands are the particles’ diameter D, size distribution width σ, number density N, and concentration c. Target uncertainties, defined as one sigma of the measurand values, are 5% for D, 10% for σ, 20% for N, and 20% for c. The certification was carried out based on ISO 17867 and the relevant ISO-Guides to produce reference material. The process of using SAXS as a reliable method for testing homogeneity and short-term and long-term stability of the material is reported. The particle preparation is described in detail so that the user can carry out the steps of synthesis and characterization in his own laboratory if required. Optionally, one can also contact the author for the provision of the silver nanoparticles. Detailed information can be found elsewhere (BAM Certification Reports, BAM-N008 (2022)).
Long seen as “a solution seeking a problem,” laser pulses are nowadays – more than 60 years after their first practical demonstration – paramount in shaping and structuring matter. Harnessing their capabilities to direct intense beams of light, the number of scientific and technological developments and daily-life applications is continuously increasing. Today, the presence of lasers is ubiquitous in all sites of scientific and technological interest, from the most advanced research laboratories to industrial factories and medical hospitals.
The directionality of the laser beam determines equally a local character on lightmatter interaction and as such a local modification to a material target. Furthermore, the coherence of laser radiation enables near-field or far-field scattering and interference effects that widen significantly the capabilities of controlling and tracking laser-matter interactions in space and time. Already with the advent of lasers, powerful beams of light have been directed at solid materials for a variety of purposes, making this application as old as the laser itself. The roots of the major applications for laser structuring were developed already in the 1960s, setting the base of both theoretical and experimental studies on laser ablation, with the number of publications expanding explosively during the next decades.
Within this dynamic context, laser processing of materials experienced an impressive development over the years. Laser processing means specifically the capability to structure and tailor a material on its surface or even within its volume, rendering new functions and properties that are impacting the mechanical, electrical, or optical characteristics of the material. These properties are scaledependent, generating thus over the years an equally impressive quest for spatial or temporal resolution. Therefore, the developments in laser engineering with major breakthroughs, notably in pulse duration and power, always closely accompanied the efforts in material structuring with two milestones in sight: (1) yield and (2) resolution. Every step in shrinking the laser pulse duration led to a subsequent strong-impact development in process precision – particularly when the ultrashort pulse durations surpassed the fundamental electron-phonon relaxation times. Thus, minimizing heat diffusion, the advent of pulses with duration smaller than molecular or lattice vibration times has managed to confine the spatial resolution to the optical diffraction limit and sometimes even beyond. The nanoscale was already in sight at the turn of the millennium. An important question may be raised now; is there any fundamental limit in the processing resolution, a barrier defined by the intrinsic properties of light and matter? The answer has an inherently multidisciplinary nature, following the conversion of free-propagating electromagnetic radiation into
material-confined energy potentially usable to drive or transform matter, and will be the focus of the present book.
Relying on the experience and expertise of the leading researchers in the field, the present book intends to explore the current efforts in achieving laser processing resolution beyond the diffraction limit, laying down a perspective towards extreme laser nanostructuring. Following the most recent advances and developments, it puts forward a concept of extreme processing scales enabled by optical pulses that are able to bypass diffraction limits and achieve structuring characteristic scales beyond 100 nm. This objective can be achieved by a comprehensive understanding on how light can change matter and how, in turn, matter can change light, allowing jointly for actively controlling light and material processes. In order to give an extended perspective on the current state-of-the-art in the field of precision laser structuring, the book is divided into three main parts.
The first part of the book (Part I: Fundamental Processes) offers a perspective into the fundamentals of laser-matter interaction on extreme spatial scales, with a description of the most advanced modeling efforts in understanding energy deposition in matter, a plethora of material-relaxation pathways, as well as advanced concepts for probing and observing matter in motion. Roadmaps for energy localization will be developed, and the atomistic perspective of laser ablation visualized. Theoretical modelling enables in-depth insights on ultrafast quantum processes at the nanoscale. Laser-driven self-organization at surfaces will be dissected regarding the question of how light drives material periodic patterns down to the nanoscale, explored and transmitted to its ultimate limits of an atomic printer, and immediately complemented by the unprecedented capabilities of ultrafast in-situ observation approaches for tracking the laser-induced material response with extreme spatial and temporal resolution.
In the second part of the book (Part II: Concepts of Extreme Nanostructuring), distinct concepts will be developed and explored that allow confinement of light and harnessing of a material response restricted to nano- or mesoscopic scales at surfaces or in the volume of irradiated materials. A special focus will be on optical near-field related approaches for localizing light on scales even below the optical diffraction limit and plasmonic printing. Spatial and temporal beam-shaping and tailored interference techniques are discussed in the context of ultrashort laser pulses, and insights into some extreme states of matter realized by the tight confinement of laser energy are presented. The ultimate limits of writing waveguides in the bulk of dielectrics and for manifesting 3D-nanolithography are elucidated. Plasma-based surface treatments can significantly enhance the vertical precision of surface processing through etching processes.
Finally, the third part of the book (Part III: Applications) leads us to a number of resuming applications, unveiling the tremendous capabilities of surface functionalization through laser micro- and nanostructuring, assessing the 3D-writing of waveguides in the bulk of dielectrics or semiconductors for enabling new branches of integrated photonics, and summarizing related applications ranging from nanophotonics to nanofluidics and from optical sensing to biomedical applications, including the latest capabilities of refractive eye surgery. This part will analyze the applications’ compatibility in yield and reproducibility with current industrial requirements, costs, and intellectual property aspects. It expands the involved spatial scales by more than eight orders of magnitude, when extending extremely small structures featuring sizes of few tens of nanometers to larger dimensions in the meter range.
Thus, from surfaces to the bulk, from subtractive to additive manufacturing approaches, from advanced theoretical frames to practical technological processes – we invite the readers here to an exciting journey into the varicolored landscape of extreme laser nanostructuring.
The idea of this book project was seeded in early 2020. We were delighted about the numerous and extremely positive responses from the laser-processing community, quickly receiving commitments for more than 30 individual book chapters. About 2500 communications later, the book is published. We would like to thank all authors of this book project for their insightful and detailed chapters, reviewing and reporting on this fascinating topic of the pursuit of extreme scales in ultrafast laser nanostructuring. Moreover, we would like to acknowledge the professional help and guidance of the staff of Springer Nature. Finally, we hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as we have enjoyed putting it together.
Saint Etienne, France Razvan Stoian
Berlin, Germany Jörn Bonse
December 2022
Surface nanostructures provide the possibility to create and tailor surface functionalities mainly via controlling their topography along with other chemical and physical material properties. One of the most appealing technologies for surface functionalization via micro- and nanostructuring is based on laser processing. This can be done either via direct contour-shaping of the irradiated material using a tightly focused laser beam or in a self-ordered way that allows employing larger laser beam diameters along with areal scanning to create a variety of laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS). For the latter approach, particularly ultrashort pulsed lasers have recently pushed the borders across long-lasting limitations regarding the minimum achievable feature sizes and additionally boosted up the production times. This chapter reviews the plethora of recently investigated applications of LIPSS—for example, via imposing diffractive or plasmonic structural colors, the management of liquids and surface wetting properties, biomedical and bioinspired functionalities, beneficial effects in tribology for reducing friction and wear, the manipulation of optical scattering and absorption in photovoltaics, or the modification of magnetic or superconducting surface properties in other energy applications. The footprint of the LIPSS-based technology is explored in detail regarding the current state of industrialization, including an analysis of the market and associated LIPSS production costs.
Irradiation of solid surfaces with intense ultrashort laser pulses represents a unique way of depositing energy into materials. It allows to realize states of extreme electronic excitation and/or very high temperature and pressure and to drive materials close to and beyond fundamental stability limits. As a consequence, structural changes and phase transitions often occur along unusual pathways and under strongly nonequilibrium conditions. Due to the inherent multiscale nature—both temporally and spatially—of these irreversible processes, their direct experimental observation requires techniques that combine high temporal resolution with the appropriate spatial resolution and the capability to obtain good quality data on a single pulse/event basis. In this respect, fourth-generation light sources, namely, short wavelength and short pulse free electron lasers (FELs), are offering new and fascinating possibilities. As an example, this chapter will discuss the results of scattering experiments carried out at the FLASH free electron laser at DESY (Hamburg, Germany), which allowed us to resolve laser-induced structure formation at surfaces on the nanometer to submicron length scale and in temporal regimes ranging from picoseconds to several nanoseconds with sub-picosecond resolution.
The cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) is a plant virus explored as a nanotechnological platform. The robust self-assembly mechanism of its capsid protein allows for drug encapsulation and targeted delivery. Additionally, the capsid nanoparticle can be used as a programmable platform to display different molecular moieties. In view of future applications, efficient production and purification of plant viruses are key steps. In established protocols, the need for ultracentrifugation is a significant limitation due to cost, difficult scalability, and safety issues. In addition, the purity of the final virus isolate often remains unclear. Here, an advanced protocol for the purification of the CCMV from infected plant tissue was developed, focusing on efficiency, economy, and final purity. The protocol involves precipitation with PEG 8000, followed by affinity extraction using a novel peptide aptamer. The efficiency of the protocol was validated using size exclusion chromatography, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, reversed-phase HPLC, and sandwich immunoassay. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the final eluate of the affinity column is of exceptional purity (98.4%) determined by HPLC and detection at 220 nm. The scale-up of our proposed method seems to be straightforward, which opens the way to the large-scale production of such nanomaterials. This highly improved protocol may facilitate the use and implementation of plant viruses as nanotechnological platforms for in vitro and in vivo applications.
Die Bestimmung der Nanopartikelgrößen- und -formverteilung nach OECD TG 125 mit der Transmission and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM/TEM) wird punktuell vorgestellt:
- Generelles Messprinzip
- Beispiele
- Korrelative Mikroskopie
- Welchen Durchmesser misst die Methode?
- Welche Partikel kann diese Methode messen?
- Welche Informationen kann diese Methode liefern?
- Wo stößt die Methode an ihre Grenzen?
- Implementierung und Datenauswertung,
- Reporting.
Anschließend wurde eine Q&A-Session für die Imaging-Methoden organisiert.
The progress in the VAMAS Project #15" Measurement of particle size and shape distribution of bipyramidal titania including deposition from liquid suspension" within TWA 34 Nanoparticle Populations is presented with highlight of the following points:
- Determine and compare particle size and shape distribution by means of:
• electron microscopy (SEM, TEM, STEM-in-SEM)
• atomic force microscopy (AFM)
• small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS)
- Determine uncertainty induced by deposition protocol from liquid suspension with comparison to known values from a prior ILC with already deposited nanoparticles on TEM grids.
- Provide comparative validation of protocols for the techniques other than TEM.
The progress of the VAMAS Project 16 "Measurement of (relative) number concentration of bimodal silica nanoparticles including deposition from liquid suspension" in TWA 34 Nanoparticle Populations is presented. Follwowing points are discusssed:
- Validate the performance of imaging methods to measure the relative number concentration
• electron microscopy (SEM, TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM)
• two modes of bimodal (30 and 60 nm) silica nanoparticles
- Validate the performance of small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) for the traceable measurement of the number concentration of the two modes.
The precipitation of struvite, a magnesium ammonium phosphate hexahydrate (MgNH₄PO₄ · 6H₂O) mineral, from wastewater is a promising method for recovering phosphorous. While this process is commonly used in engineered environments, our understanding of the underlying mechanisms responsible for the formation of struvite crystals remains limited. Specifically, indirect evidence suggests the involvement of an amorphous precursor and the occurrence of multi-step processes in struvite formation, which would indicate non-classical paths of nucleation and crystallization. In this study, we use synchrotron-based in situ x-ray scattering complemented by cryogenic transmission electron microscopy to obtain new insights from the earliest stages of struvite formation. The holistic scattering data captured the structure of an entire assembly in a time-resolved manner. The structural features comprise the aqueous medium, the growing struvite crystals, and any potential heterogeneities or complex entities. By analysing the scattering data, we found that the onset of crystallization causes a perturbation in the structure of the surrounding aqueous medium. This perturbation is characterized by the occurrence and evolution of Ornstein-Zernike fluctuations on a scale of about 1 nm, suggesting a non-classical nature of the system. We interpret this phenomenon as a liquid-liquid phase separation, which gives rise to the formation of the amorphous precursor phase preceding actual crystal growth of struvite. Our microscopy results confirm that the formation of Mg-struvite includes a short-lived amorphous phase, lasting >10 s.