Sorry, I can not suggest you what to do because I don't know what you are doing. In my opinion , first of all, you must to think about your material, the importance of it, applications, properties, then if SEM is the must appropriate instrument to study the material, because SEM is a powerful tool you may know the structures, sizes, dimensions, chemical composition and so on. Good luck in your work.
I agree with Claudio on how the material properties are and the particle morphologies of these materials are. Sometimes you might have a dense aggregate of the particles, which might be difficult to discern between the particles in question and if the question is to define the particle size. You might also complement the study by XRD analyses, where you can also use the Scherrer equation to obtain the particle sizes.
It depends on what you are actually looking for. I can better help if you explain your research.
SEM micrograph just give you the information regarding morphology of the material i.e. nature of the material (solid or flakes) and if you want to measure the particle size of your material then you must go for TEM as its hard from SEM to calculate the particle size.....Good Luck.........
Dear Rekha,
Although many of the contributors suggested the use of Image J, and it is a good software, however, you could also try using SemAfore software. It is also very good and it is freely downloadable from Joel's web site, please see the following link: http://www.jeol.de/electronoptics-en/products/electron-and-ion-optics/scanning-electron-microscopes/accessory/semafore-digitizer.php.
There are two versions, 5.1 and 5.21 depending on which type of windows software you use on your PC. It is easy to use and you can do all sorts of measurements, length, area, which is probably, what you are to do.
Best of luck
Basil
Dear Rekha,
Sorry that I am a bit late arriving to this question...
I agree with those who have emphasized that knowing what you are after will help us giving you the best suggestion.
Although I agree that ImageJ is a good software for image analysis, I would like to suggest an alternative free image analysis software called Image Tool. I have used it to estimate all sorts of microstructural parameters in the past and it works quite well. You can download it from: http://compdent.uthscsa.edu/dig/itdesc.html
Best wishes and good luck,
David.
can anyone help me with interpreting FE SEM image of shale to identify pore size and minerals present.?
The field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) will allow you to see the pore structure (micro, meso and macro) with their respective sizes and the morphology of your sample. To identify the minerals present, you need to use energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) so that you can quantify the elements. It is impossible now for me to give you an interpretation of the image without access to it.
You can use ImageJ software. Which is free available on https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/download.html. For analyzing the SEM micrograph with image j software, you can see the video on youtube and get the idea, how to use this software.
@Rekha Bai SEM images can be used to determine the particle size, morphology of the surfaces, chemical composition, average size, thickness of coatings, etc.
You can use Image-J as well as Irfan View for image analysis. For EDX, you can take the data in an excel format and analyse the data with it
As answered by Muqsit, Peng , I will want to add that apart from Image J , you can as well use Gwyddion software which is very friendly and you can use qti plot to make the chart (probability density function against mean particle sizes).
Hello everyone I want to perform SEM analysis of wax paper. But I have read that the SEM analysis cannot be performed on wax containing samples because wax contaminate the parts of the microscope. So is there any protocol available which I can follow for performing SEM analysis of samples containing wax?
You can dry the sample I'm an oven at low temperatures to remove ambient moisture and coat the samples twice using platinum or gold sputtering. Subsequently observe them at low kv preferably 5 kv or lower and at working distance upto 15 mm. These will improve observation and decrease chances of column contamination.
If you using an FESEM then observe the samples in the LEI modem
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