I would like to investigate the structure of sol-gel Nb2O5 films spin coated on glass or silicon substrates by TEM and need to transfer them onto TEM grids.
Thanks to Volker Klemm
I need to transfer the film to TEM grid because we do not have equipment for cross section preparation at the moment
You can use small glass bar dipped in methanol, ethanol or isopropanol, then remove the films surface. You need to repeat this process many times until the surface completely removed (return the glass bar to the solvent). You can put drop from the solvent that contains the films particle on TEM grid. Other method is you can put your film in one of the solvents mentioned above together in ultrasonic for few minutes then use glass bar to remove the surface.
You can try the following two methods.
1) Deposit your films directly onto the grids with a fine mesh, and do the TEM studies.
If you are lucky to get a continuous film between the fine wires, you can do TEM.
2) Deposist your films on NaCl substrates.
Carefully dip one of the NaCl substate into water (Kept in a petri dish), and slowly see if the film detaches from the substrate and begins to float on the water.
Pick up a grid with a fine tweezer, dip it into the water, and slowly go underneath the floating film, and lift the grid up to so that that you pick up the floating film.
this technique is an age old technique, and would be described in many handbooks,
say the "handbook of Thin film technology" by Maissel and Glang.
Prof. K. Sreenivas
Thank you very much, Prof. Sreenivas. Do you think that the film's morphology and structure deposited on NaCl substrate will be the same as the one deposited onto glass substrate?
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