Electron Microscopy

Abstract

Part II of this book addresses the characterization of nanocrystals and thin polymer films. A short introduction to a selection of relevant characterization methods will be given, their presentation being focused on the application to materials relevant for optoelectronics. The aim is to collect in one book a brief overview over the possibilities opened by some of the most important methods in the field, rather than to present a complete overview on existing methods or to present all methods in their complete complexity. This first chapter of Part II treats electron microscopy. In general, imaging techniques can be considered as the most direct methods for getting structural information on a sample. The imaging of materials with characteristic lengths in the nanometer size regime requires microscopic methods which enable correspondingly high spatial resolution. Whereas in classical optical microscopy the resolution is limited by the wavelength of visible light to approximately 200 nm, the usage of an electron beam instead of visible light enables in principle atomic resolution. Therefore, electron microscopy is an important and widely used method in materials science. One can distinguish several types of electron microscopy, basically transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In this chapter, a brief introduction to electron microscopy will be given, and examples of applying this technique for the investigation of nanostructured materials for optoelectronic applications will be presented.