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research article

Practical method for high-resolution imaging of polymers by low-voltage scanning electron microsopy

Gaillard, C.
•
Stadelmann, P. A.  
•
Plummer, C. J. G.  
Show more
2004
Scanning

A method for preparing and observing clay platelets for size and shape analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was developed. Samples of the clay platelets were prepared by polyelectrolyte-assisted adsorption onto a pyrolytic graphite surface. The use of graphite as a substrate was advantageous because of the low number of secondary electrons emitted from it during imaging by SEM. The resulting low background noise allowed the emission from the  1 nm thick clay sheets to be clearly visualized. Images of centrifuged montmorillonite showed large exfoliated platelets with lateral dimensions between 200 and 600 nm. In contrast, uncentrifuged montmorillonite appeared to contain a large amount of unexfoliated clusters. Although it was not possible to obtain high-quality images of the smaller sheets of Laponite RD, the images of this material did contain size features comparable to the  30 nm2 size reported previously using light scattering, as well as transmission electron and atomic force microscopies.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1002/sca.4950260304
Web of Science ID

WOS:000222514700003

Author(s)
Gaillard, C.
Stadelmann, P. A.  
Plummer, C. J. G.  
Fuchs, G.
Date Issued

2004

Published in
Scanning
Volume

26

Issue

3

Start page

122

End page

130

Subjects

clay

•

polyelectrolyte

•

scanning electron microscopy

URL

URL

http://www.scanning.org/#toc
Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LTC  
CIME  
Available on Infoscience
June 26, 2006
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/232344
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