Analytische Chemie
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A plethora of innovative materials are produced by depositing thin and ultrathin coatings on different substrates. For instance, hard disks able to store terabytes of information are based on multiple magnetic and non-magnetic nano-layers. Moreover, protectives coatings might be used to enhance the mechanical properties of substrate materials; for instance Zn-based coatings are used in the Al industry.
In this context, solid analytical techniques are required to provide fast multi-elemental chemical analyses with high depth resolution (to monitor the different layers) and high sensitivity (to detect major, minor and trace elements). Direct solid analytical techniques, including Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, Secondary Neutral Mass Spectrometry, Auger Electron Spectroscopy or X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy provide very valuable information about the atomic chemical composition of the surfaces/coatings; however, they also have some major drawbacks, such as high operating costs, complex sample pre-treatment and handling, low sample throughput and/or severe matrix effects that result in difficult quantification procedures. In order to overcome some of these drawbacks Glow Discharge Mass Spectroscopy (GD-MS) is proposed as a complementary methodology that provides an ideal solution for fast and accurate bulk and layer analyses. In this work, we evaluate the advantages and limitations of this technique and we discuss about recent progresses and new applications.
The composition of thin films of polymer blends in vertical direction is still under discussion. For explaining the thickness dependence of some properties like the thermal glass transition temperature, a three-layer model has been introduced consisting of an adsorbed layer with a reduced segmental mobility at the substrate, a bulk-like layer in the middle of the film and an outermost surface layer with a higher molecular mobility. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (ER-XPS) measurements with a varying excitation energy from 400 eV to 1486.6 eV and, herewith, an information depth from 1.5 nm to 10 nm were performed at PVME/PS films with compositions of 25/75 wt% and 50/50 wt% and thicknesses between 15 nm and 190 nm. As expected, it was found that the PVME concentration decreases with increasing information depth. Secondly, a complex correlation between the PVME concentration at the surface and the film thickness was found. The PVME concentration increases with decreasing film thickness until a maximum at 30 nm. For thinner films, the PVME concentration decreases. These data agree with previous investigations obtained with specific heat spectroscopy.
We thank BESSY II (HZB) for the allocation of beamtime at the HE-SGM beamline and for technical support. DFG (Project number 124846229) is acknowledged for financial support.
Since its discovery, graphene has got growing attention in the industrial and application research due to its unique properties . However, graphene has not been yet implemented into the industrial market, in particularly due to the difficulty of properly characterizing this challenging material. As most of other nanomaterials, graphene’s properties are closely linked to its chemical and structural properties, such as number of layers, flake thickness, degree of functionalisation and C/O ratio. For the commercialization, suitable procedures for the measurement and characterization of the ultrathin flakes, of lateral dimensions in the range from µm to tens of µm, are essential.Surface chemical methods, especially XPS, have an outstanding role of providing chemical information on the composition. Thereby, one well-known problem for surface analytical methods is the influence of contamination on the composition as in the case of adventitious carbon. The differentiation between carbon originated from the contamination or from the graphene sample itself is often not obvious, which can lead to altered results in the determination of the composition. To overcome this problem, Hard Energy X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (HAXPES) offers new possibilities due to its higher information depth. Therefore, XPS measurement obtained with Al Kα radiation (E = 1486. 6 eV) were compared with analyses performed with a Cr Kα (E = 5414. 8 eV) excitation on functionalized graphene samples. Differences are discussed in terms of potential carbon contamination, but also of oxygen on the composition of the samples. Measurements are performed on O-, N- and F-functionalized graphene. Different preparation procedures (powder, pellet, drop cast from liquid suspension) will be also discussed, correlation of the results with the flakes morphology as well as their validation with other independent methods are in progress.