Does Epoxy clay nanocomposite sample require surface preparation. I am going for Gold sputtering to make the surface conductive. I guess there is no need to clean or polish the surface beneath the conductive coating. Is there anything else that I need to do ? What about the thickness of the specimen ? If the specimen is 2 mm thick, do you think the nanoclay would not be accessible for the secondary electrons ? So, should I go for very lesser thickness ?
Dear Dr. Muralishwara Kakunje ,
I suggest you to have a look at these documents:
-Scanning electron microscopy methods for analysis of polymer nanocomposites
D. A. Dikin, K. M. Kohlhaas, G. H. B. Dommett, S. Stankovich, R. S. Ruoff
Microsc. Microanal., 12(Supp 2), 2006
Available, on RG, at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231955747_Scanning_Electron_Microscopy_Methods_for_Analysis_of_Polymer_Nanocomposites
- Strategies for scanning electron microscopy sample preparation and characterization of multiwall carbon nanotube polymer composites
András E. Vladá
NIST Special Publication 1200-17 (2015)
Available at: https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=919173
My best regards, Pierluigi Traverso.
In SEM electron energy can be adjusted according to thickness of material.
What kind of analysis do you want to do? Just imaging, or maybe you want to do EDX analysis? SEM electron beam will not penetrate 2 mm.
Ali Frotanpour I want to do both, imaging and elemental analysis.
An Giang Nguyen Thank you for that. I will check. Most probably the nanoclay is dispersed throughout, so the presence of nanoclay should be detected by the secondary electrons also.
Pierluigi Traverso Thanks Sir! I will go through the Journals.
For imaging, the thickness does not matter since you are imaging the surface. If you are using EDX, I am sure it will not measure 2mm depth. Depending on material type it must be around 2 micron but do you own research. You di. Ot need to change anything but keet that in you mind what you measure is not all of it.
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