My sample (expect it to be sodium nanosphere) is sandwiched between two quartz slides. Now, I want to know the element of the sample (whether it is sodium, or not), fabricated metal's size and shape, optical absorption and scattering and electrical conductivity.
For these, I am thinking about SEM (EDX) to know whether it is sodium or not, TEM for size and shape of the nanoparticle, FTIR for optical properties.
Can anyone please tell me, whether I can do SEM (EDX), TEM and FTIR if my sample is sandwiched between two quartz slides?
And the other thing is, how can I know about the electrical conductivity of the sample? (Gamry four point probe can't work here, how about doing a Megar test?)
Elemental analysis – possibility of elemental analysis will be given by thicknesses of your substrates. However, due to limited penetration depth of electrons, it will be better to use X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF). I have no particular data right now, but in case of thick substrates also XRF fails due to high absorption of energies equal to Na K-alpha line. If sodium nanospheres are crystalline in nature and substrates are amorphous (fused silica), it may be better try to utilize XRD for confirmation of elementary sodium presence.
FTIR – it should works in region of transparency of substrates, if the surface doesn’t cause scattering, of course. You may apply also UV-Vis-NIR spectroscopy, it may give You some information (e.g. about stability or reproducibility of your nanoparticles).
TEM – it works only for very thin specimens – let us say tens of nanometers.
If I understand correctly then you want to characterize the central portion of a sandwiched structure. I am also assuming that the thickness is ~100nm or larger. In this case you can do a cross sectional SEM + Line scan EDS. This should give you some understanding about the elements present.
With regard to the FTIR analysis, it depends on what waveband you intend to scan. IR grade quartz of course transmits in the visible range, and also in the IR up to around 3.5µm wavelength, but transmission tails off above this wavelength. It will most likely be completely absorbing above 5µm.
There also might be some absorption due to water around 2.7-3.0µm.
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