| AVS 66th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Advanced Ion Microscopy and Ion Beam Nano-engineering Focus Topic | Wednesday Sessions |
| Session HI+AS+CA-WeA |
| Session: | Advanced Ion Microscopy and Surface Analysis Applications |
| Presenter: | Christelle Guillermier, Carl Zeiss PCS, Inc. |
| Authors: | C. Guillermier, Carl Zeiss PCS, Inc. F. Khanom, Carl Zeiss PCS, Inc. D. Medina, Northeastern University J.-N. Audinot, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Luxembourg |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Over the past several years, the use of both nanoparticles and nanostructured surfaces have emerged as an alternative’s solution to antibiotic resistant bacteria as they effectively decrease bacterial survival without being highly toxic to mammalian cells. These nanoparticles whose sizes span 10 nm to several hundred nm are composed of a variety of materials such as pure metals, metal oxides, and metalloids. Their chemical characterization however remains a challenge due to their small sizes. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) are the conventional analytical techniques of choice to determine the nanoparticles’ morphology, size, and elemental composition. However, although sensitive enough to detect trace elements, SEM and EDX cannot provide elemental information for the smallest features on a bulk sample, or for the lightest elements.
The ORION NanoFab is an ion microscope that allows for high resolution secondary electron (SE) imaging with a He+ focused ion beam that can be focused to a 0.5 nm probe size. The same instrument offers a Ne+ ion beam with a focused probe size of 2 nm. Recently, this same platform has been configured with a custom-designed magnetic sector secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS). It allows for the detection of all periodic table elements including H and Li which EDS cannot easily detect. Importantly, SIMS with neon provides elemental imaging with spatial resolution smaller than 20 nm. The combination of high resolution He+ imaging (0.5 nm) with Ne+ SIMS elemental mapping yields a direct correlative technique particularly attractive for exploring nanoparticles and nanofeatures in general.
NanoFab-SIMS has already yielded information-rich images in diverse fields of applications. We will here illustrate its potential for the characterization of biogenic nanoparticles made by bacteria and plants.