Scientific Achievement
We demonstrate a method to directly observe and measure porosity of nonconductive surfaces at the nanoscale, without any sample pre-treatment.
Significance and Impact
Our method compares within 1% of industry standard measurements, and gives superior insights into surface structure including direct high-resolution pore visualization, pore size distribution, and pore coverage.
Research Details
– Porous materials are key for a vast number of applications in energy, drug delivery, and agriculture.
– The standard industrial way to measure porosity is by using Gas Absorption – a robust method which lacks high throughput and offers no direct surface visualization.
– Helium Ion Microscopy allows direct imaging of pores at the nanoscale without any sample treatment. Data analytics is then used to quantify pore size and distribution in images.
M. J. Burch, A. V. Ievlev, K. Mahady, H. Hysmith, P. D. Rack, A. Belianinov, and O. S. Ovchinnikova, "Helium ion microscopy for imaging and quantifying porosity at the nanoscale," Anal. Chem. 90, 1370-1375 (2018).
