Thin, microstructural characterization

Schwartz, R. W. Assink, R. A. Headley, T. J. 1992. Solution chemistry effects in PZT thin film processing spectroscopic and microstructural characterization. In Ferroelectric Thin Films II, edited by Kingon, A. I. Myers, E. R. Tuttle, B. Mat. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. 243 245-254. 

Wada, T. Nishitani, M. Negami, T. Kohara, N. Ikeda, M. Terauchi, M. 1994. Microstructural characterization of substrate-type and superstrate-type CuInSe2 thin film solar cells. Proc. 12th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conf. pp. 1542-1545. 

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a powerful and mature microstructural characterization technique. The principles and applications of TEM have been described in many books [16 20]. The image formation in TEM is similar to that in optical microscopy, but the resolution of TEM is far superior to that of an optical microscope due to the enormous differences in the wavelengths of the sources used in these two microscopes. Today, most TEMs can be routinely operated at a resolution better than 0.2 nm, which provides the desired microstructural information about ultrathin layers and their interfaces in OLEDs. Electron beams can be focused to nanometer size, so nanochemical analysis of materials can be performed [21]. These unique abilities to provide structural and chemical information down to atomic-nanometer dimensions make it an indispensable technique in OLED development. However, TEM specimens need to be very thin to make them transparent to electrons. This is one of the most formidable obstacles in using TEM in this field. Current versions of OLEDs are composed of hard glass substrates, soft organic materials, and metal layers. Conventional TEM sample preparation techniques are no longer suitable for these samples [22-24], Recently, these difficulties have been overcome by using the advanced dual beam (DB) microscopy technique, which will be discussed later. 

Buchko. C.J., Chen, L.C., Shen, Y., and Martin, D.C., 1999. Processing and microstructural characterization of porous biocompatible protein polymer thin films. Polymer. 40. pp. 7397-7407. 

MICROSTRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF La-Cr-O THIN FILM DEPOSITED BY RF MAGNETRON SPUTTERING ON THE STAINLESS STEEL INTERCONNECT MATERIALS FOR SOFC APPLICATION... 

Salleo A, Kline RJ, Delongchamp DM, Chabinyc ML (2010) Microstructural characterization and charge transport in thin films of conjugated polymers. Adv Mater 22 3812-3838. doi 10.1002/adma.200903712... 

Yeager D. John, and Bahr F. David. Microstructural characterization of thin gold films on a polyhnide substrate. Thin Solid Films 518 (2010) 5896-5900. 

Microstructural Characterization of Thin Pofyimide Fihns by Positron lifetime Spectroscopy... 

A.H. Deutchman and R.J. Partyka (Beam Alloy Corporation observe, "Characterization and classification of thin diamond films depend both on advanced surface-analysis techniques capable of analyzing elemental composition and microstructure (morphology and crystallinity), and on measurement of macroscopic mechanical, electrical, optical and thermal properties. Because diamond films are very thin (I to 2 micrometers or less) and grain and crystal sizes are very small, scanning electron microscopy... 

More recent efforts focused on surface modification of conductive polymers by the SECM, fabrication, and characterization of microstructures. Mandler et al. developed an approach for the formation of a 2D conducting polymer on top of an insulating layer. This approach, based on electrostatically binding a monomer (anilinium ions) to a negatively charged self-assembled monolayer of co-mercaptodecanesulfonate [MDS, HS(CH2)ioS03 ] followed by its electrochemical polymerization. The polyanion monolayer exhibited the properties similar to those of a thin polymer film [167]. 

The results described above demonstrate the utility of this AW technique [135] for characterizing thin film microstructure. This technique uses the well-established nitrogen adsorption isotherm technique commonly used to evaluate porous bulk samples. By increasing the sensitivity to the amount of adsorbed Na, this AW technique allows thin films to be characterized directly. 

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