Dear S M Naimul, The SEM image that you have attached is unclear. But if you have proper SEM Image you can calculate the particle size using MATLAB. We can use image processing tool box and can calculate.
Here I have attached the ZIP file consists .m file and some example images.
Please go through the readme file before executing the .m file.
The particles exhibited on your providing image are very tiny and aggrigated. You may use ImageJ software for measing your particle size. Albeit it is kind of a patient-work, it seems not impossible to accompinish. I have attached some videos that could be helpful for your study.
Dear S M Naimul, the SEM gives an image for particles agglomeration, not for separated crystallites. So, to determine the particle size (crystallite size) you must use TEM where the size will be given directly by the program used.
Generally, it is preferred to measure particle size using the DLS technique. However, only in cases of monolayer arrangement of particles, SEM can be used. It is strongly suggested to go with the DLS technique.
Dear @Gorthala Guruprasad, Thank you for the zip file. Your file contains similar SEM images to mine. I am not familiar with Matlab. I read the readme file but do not get it. Do you have any video tutorials where you describe how to calculate the particle size in similar SEM images using MATLAB?
Dear Kamilia Sedeek, I will go for TEM this week. But the problem is the technician here is not familiar with doing TEM for thin film samples; rather, he suggested me to make powder samples for the TEM. But my supervisor said that the TEM of the thin film and powder would not be similar. I am confused about how I should approach this.
Here the research facilities are very limited, and we do not have any opportunities to perform BET or laser diffraction on the powder. Also, my samples are GA2O3 thin films.
> How can I determine whether the morphology is changing or not with doping?
The presented images is hard to interpret, because significant information is mission (beam energy, detector, pixel separation) are missing.
Looking at the image I would call it a SEM image of a rough polycrystalline material (later in the discussion it turned out to be Ga2O3 thin film), but the quality (pixel size) is too small for discussion and some experiments.
So, what morphology do you want to measure?
- The size of the “grains”, their shape (are they more or less circular, or quadratic, or elongated; there are several descriptors), the roughness (height differences in a certain area)?
- If you have different samples (doping) you should deduce the numbers and prove if the results are statistically different or not. I’ve seen a lot of papers where a set of let’s say 4 images is presented without quantitative interpretation and the figure captions reads “Effect of (doing/heating) on grain size…”.
TEM was mentioned and has a better resolution, but a much smaller field of view. Therefore, getting good statistics may be very time consuming. In TEM the information is along the beam in the sample. It doesn’t matter if your image is a thin layer in transmission or a cross section. Your lamella may contain several grains along the beam.
If we interpret the objects in your image as grains, how can we measure in SEM?
Particle analysis requires images of sufficient quality (contrast, signal-to-noise ratio), resolution (pixel separation), and image size (pixel number). The presented image is not sufficient.
An image should be clear. A lot of software are available to calculate the particle size. one software is J image software which is free for download and lots of videos are available for this software on youtube.
Firstly the image is not very clear and teh diemsion or scale of the image is also not mentioned. Since the morphology is particle-like so i think magnified scale SEM image would be a better option to choose. Further ImageJ can be used for the particle size estimation.
I am totally agree with Shiv dutta and Drashya that the SEM image should be very clear and the surface and particle brightness and contrast should be adjusted so that it will be easy to create colour threshold. After that using image J software, you can determine the particle size .
You can use Imagej for area distribution analysis, but I think you need to have better image at higher magnification scale and/or higher resolution, the particle shapes and sizes are not clear.
True that the image is not clear. You can repeat the test and ask the SEM operator to do coating for your sample, after that you can distinct the morphology. As mentioned before, you can use Image J software to measure the size of NPS. Just search in Youtub you will find helpful videos
Compare the pure and dopant of your SEM images then you can identify whether there is any difference in the morphology. According to me SEM images were looks like spherical in shape.
You need a scale bar and ideally a reference specimen to calibrate the magnification more accurately as most service technicians do not bother to do this to high precision for all acceleration voltages set up.
Then see if you can get an image with a better focus - this looks a little fuzzy.
After thresholding a lot of programs will give you a size distribution but check that the choice of threshold and magnification themselves do not influence your result. Finally, remember you will not see anything smaller than your point resolution or twice the pixel size chosen (Nyquist limit), whatever is the bigger, so your histogram will be cut off there.
The image is blurred. You might need to redo the SEM imaging and increase the focus this time before taking snapshots. Another option is to use TEM which has a better resolution. I hope this helps.
You should take clear image. You can calculate particle size during the taking SEM images. Either you can use particle size analyzer that is very easy.
You can test the morphology by using the atomic force microscope, and you can get the 1 micrometer x 1micrometer window in 2D and 3D views. For measuring the size of nanoparticles you can divide each photo on several fragments (small) and equals to each other. Then you can calculate the amount of particles in each. And their sizes you can estimate by means of scale of your device and size of all photo. Furthermore, you can determine the average size in each fragment, the average of size in window of your photo, the Gauss distribution of particles in their sizes. Later, you can compare the size distribution (by using Gauss statistic N(m,D)) with other distributions on the other photos with other particles. This method can help you to collect the information about sizes of particles much more than by measuring only single crystal sizes. Because, the procedure of doping is spatial distributed in all area of film or surface, too. The doping concentration can be spatial differs from one fragment of film to another. The application of statistical methods can detect the characteristics of film which are non transparent by measuring the sizes of a single particles. Only following by this way you can detect the dependence between the chemical changes of film and its morphological properties.
Shengjie Zhai OK, if it's so simple, let's see you demonstrate this and provide a 'particle size distribution' for this system where there are no separate, discrete, independent, particles...
You can use ImageJ software to determine the size of the particle. You will get several tutorials on YouTube, and by following the tricks shown there, you can easily do this.
Md. Somel Islam See my comment immediately above yours. I look forward to seeing your Image J report on the posted picture. As you say, it's 'easily' done...