为了提高纳米晶的TEM表征质量,通过在水/气两相界面上铺展纳米晶/聚合物复合单层膜的方法,制备了质量较高的TEM样品.对于水相纳米晶采用表面活性剂再包覆的方法,将其转移到油相.与传统制样方法(尤其是水相合成纳米晶)相比,嵌入聚合物膜中的纳米晶更容易分散(受到空间位阻与分子间弱相互作用等因素的影响),并且聚合物膜可以自支持在空的铜网上,从而提高了TEM照片的清晰度.研究了系统中聚合物、纳米晶、表面活性剂和溶剂的种类及配比关系对于样品和成像质量的影响,结果表明,该方法对各种金属及半导体纳米晶的TEM表征具有一定的普适性.
A facile and feasible method for preparing transmission electron microscope(TEM) specimen was reported by combining the phase transfer of aqueous nanocrystals(NCs) and the formation of polymer-supported free-standing films on water/air interface.In comparison to traditional TEM specimen preparation method-especially for aqueous systems,the quality of TEM images is greatly improved due to better particle dispersion.The TEM images show that through optimizing a few preparation factors,distinct particle dispersion and clear images of individual particles can be observed.In addition,we apply this strategy to other NCs to prove that this method is universal for preparing TEM samples of various NCs,such as Au,Ag,CdS and CdTe.