Masters, R.C., Pearson, A.J., Glen, T.S. et al. (6 more authors) (2015) Sub-nanometre resolution imaging of polymer-fullerene photovoltaic blends using energy-filtered scanning electron microscopy. Nature Communications, 6. 6928 . ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
The resolution capability of the scanning electron microscope has increased immensely in recent years, and is now within the sub-nanometre range, at least for inorganic materials. An equivalent advance has not yet been achieved for imaging the morphologies of nanostructured organic materials, such as organic photovoltaic blends. Here we show that energy-selective secondary electron detection can be used to obtain high-contrast, material-specific images of an organic photovoltaic blend. We also find that we can differentiate mixed phases from pure material phases in our data. The lateral resolution demonstrated is twice that previously reported from secondary electron imaging. Our results suggest that our energy-filtered scanning electron microscopy approach will be able to make major inroads into the understanding of complex, nano-structured organic materials.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 Macmillan Publishers Limited. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Materials Science and Engineering (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 29 Oct 2015 18:44 |
Last Modified: | 29 Oct 2015 18:51 |
Published Version: | https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7928 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Nature Publishing Group |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/ncomms7928 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:90742 |