For conventional imaging in the SEM, specimens must be electrically conductive, at least at the surface, and electrically grounded to prevent the accumulation of electrostatic charge at the surface. So I think it can't be done with glass slides.

You cant see SEM by sandwiching your sample. Simply electrons will not pass through glass to other medium. Electrons can't penetrate more than few hundred nm in SEM. For XRD also, conventional sources like Cu K-alpha will not pass through glass slide.

It will be useful if you could elaborate on the nature of your nanowire (sample of nanowires ?)and what you hope to accomplish using SEM and XRD.

I removed XRD spectra through a polyethylene film. Polythene amorphous, and samples were highly crystallinity. Can be turn out to take off a spectrum through thin glass. Important what thickness of your sample and what at it crystallinity.

Thank you very much for all of yours answers.

I am trying to fabricate sodium nanosphehers/nanowires. As sodium is reactive to oxygen, I can't let sodium to come to air's contact. That's why thought to keep the fabricated sodium sandwiched in between two glass slides to seal it from oxygen.

But I will surely need to characterize the fabricated metal by XRD, TEM and SEM. Problem is: how can I do that?

Neither can I let sodium to come to oxygen's contact nor, I can escape the characterization part. Can anyone please suggest me anything regarding this problem?

Thanking all of you in anticipation.

Well, after forming the nanowire can you coat them in-situ with less than 5 nm thin metal film like Au / Ag / Cu. This would definitely help.

I don`t think It is possible to characterize XRD or SEM by putting your samples between two glass slides. Only the information of the surface of the glass slide could be obtained. Maybe you can mixing your samples (powder) into a polymer substrate to measure XRD spectra because normally the polymer is weakly crystalline. That means the signal of your sample is obviously stronger than the substrate, so that the polymer could not affect the spectra seriously. You may put the powder into a polymer solution (eg. polystyrene chloroform solution) and make a composite film (maybe by dip coating) in a glove box. For SEM characterization, I don`t have any good idea. But maybe you can use a very thin polymer composite film to characterize TEM. I Hope this will help.

For XRD the glass plates itself will give some characteristic spectra. so it not possible to obtain XRD if placed between two glass paltes.

Even for SEM the KE of electrons are not enough to penetrate into the glass plate and reach the sample. so u have to consider some other method.

I think, that your sample can be protected by a thin layer of oil, vaseline etc.

In an inert atmosphere or on very quickly air put some drops of oil on a surface.

The pure oil at all does not prevent the XRD analysis.

Thank you very much everybody for your help.

Dear Dr. Sergey Bogdanov, yes, I think this is a very good idea. I can put a thin layer of oil over fabricated sodium just before XRD/TEM.

But what I am confused about, whether this layer of oil will do any harm to the basic properties (my optimum target is to check optical qualities of sodium nanoparticle) of sodium. Would you please let me know your thinking regarding this?

And I have given you an email. It would be great for me, if you please let me keep in touch with you. My email id is: "[email protected]"

To Shaikat Debnath:

What thicknesses of glass slides you are talking about?

If the slide is a thin slice, then it is possible to perform X-ray diffraction of your sandwiched structure with nanowires pressed inside, because the X-ray penetration depth is large i.e. ~several microns or more. However, your XRD spectra will have a contribution in the low angle side, with a hump (without any characteristic peak though), due to the amorphous nature of the glass slide. So, there will not be any problem in identifying or analyzing the characteristic peaks of your metal nanoparticles.

Regarding SEM, the sandwiched structure will not work. The secondary electrons, used in conventional imaging in SEM have low kinetic energy ~ 100eV or less and are emerged from a very low depth on the scanned surface of the sample, say only few tens of nm. Even in back scattered imaging mode, where a fraction of back scattered high energy primary electrons are used for imaging, the penetration depth is only half a micron or similar, because of fast attenuation of the electrons due to short mean free path of electrons in materials. So the upper glass slide will pose a barrier in SEM imaging. The best way for SEM imaging of your samples is to use folding grids (a pair of grids joined at one edge) as suggested by Volker Klemm. But there is no scope of sealing your metal nanowires.

Putting a drop of oil on your sample is a good idea. However, it will prevent you from using conventional SEM, since the sample chamber is under high vacuum. You have to use Environmental SEM for imaging. XRD might work though, since the sample holder, in this case, remains in air..

If you have a transmission geometry XRD (i.e. where you shine through your sandwich with the sandwich normal parallel to the beam) you might be able to collect a diffraction pattern. Between your sandwich it'll be easy (due to capillary forces) to have a thin layer of oil as well, for additional protection of the sample. As for the electron microscopy, you can get a vacuum sample transfer box for the electron microscope, so you can keep your sample in vacuum, without the need for glass plates.

Depending on the thickness of the sample, (S)TEM might provide you with an electron diffraction pattern as well, which can also be used to find the crystallographic information.

Idea of protection with the help of oil only for the x-ray difraction analysis.

For SEM it certainly is not necessary. It is important to check up what background on a spectrum gives your oil. It is necessary previously to make spectra with oil and without it on a known sample.

It will allow to characterize structure of your sample. The optical properties under a layer of oil probably will others.

To Shaikat Debnath :

Na is inflammable in air. I am curious to know how you handle your nanoparticles just after fabrication? Do you store them in vacuum?

To: Shaikat Debnath,

What exactly you want to measure?

How do you handle your "powder"?

Can you in-situ coat it with low Z materials (not Ag, Pd or Au)?

Sodium is a low Z (low atomic number material meaning few electrons) as such XRD and SEM give low signal as compared to higher Z as you have in glass compounds.

Hence, glass in not the best solution.

Anyhow coating bf your nanoparticle in low Z such as carbon which conductive (good for SEM) and have either well defined diffraction or if very thin amorphous, might work for XRD.

Good luck

Thank you all for your answer. thank you very very much. it has been very helpful for me.

Dear Dr. Suchitra Sen, i haven't done my experiment yet, but yes, i am planning to keep it in vacuum after fabrication.

And dear Dr. Ori Yeheskel, thank you very much for your ideas.