Nanoforum

Nanometrology

Type of publication: Report, Nanoforum publication

Abstract: This report aims to provide information for a wide audience: academic researchers active in nanotechnology; engineers in industry; PhD students; researchers with experience in various measurement techniques who would like to enter the field of nanoscience, nanotechnology, and nanometrology; university and college teachers who would like to widen their knowledge in modern techniques and methods of material analysis; fundamental researchers who are interested in improvement of 'classical' theories that cannot explain the new phenomena emerging in the field of nanoscience; investors who would like to benefit from a future technology; SMEs with innovative programmes in their business plans. A wealth of figures, images and graphs give the reader the basis for understanding the peculiar field of nanosized objects and the materials made of them.

Summary: The concept of nanometrology is introduced and defined in the first part of this report. Its importance is highlighted through an introduction to size – property relationships, which is the key aspect of nanometrology. Nanotechnology and nanosciences exploit and study new phenomena that appear when some characteristic structure of a material is in the nanometre size range. It is obvious that a key element of nanometrology is to measure dimensions in the range 1 to about 100 nm (with precision reaching 0.1 nm nowadays), and to correlate the measured size with properties. This introduction is followed be a review of European institutions and companies active in nanometrology, which shows that there are not that many organisations involved with nanometrology considering the importance of the field. In nanometrology there are two main issues to consider: precise measurement of sizes in the nanometre range, and adapting existing or developing new methods to characterise properties as a function of size. A direct consequence of this is obviously developing methods to characterise sizes based on evaluation of properties, and to compare sizes measured using various methods. This report provides a comprehensive review of characterisation methods, properties that are size dependent in a range of materials, as well as characteristic dimensions. It also provides a classification of nanostructures and dimensions that characterise them with regard to possible applications. Nanometrology standards is an emerging field of nanotechnology, and so in this report some fields are reviewed in more detail. The motivation is to share the experience gathered by the authors with a broad scientific community. This part of the report concerns in particular: - determination of size and grain size distribution in nanoparticles and nanomaterials. This field addresses nanostructures with a stochastic component as far as shape and size distribution, which is a considerable challenge for nanometrology. Solutions and procedures regarding how to deal with size characterisation for nanopowders and bulk nanomaterials are presented and open questions explained. - examples of nanometrology in the nanometre range. This section concerns surfaces and thin films measured with single atom precision. It is felt that some methods and procedures need to be unified to achieve comparable and reliable results. It is hoped that these sections will contribute to further development of nanometrology standards.

More information: http://www.nanoforum.org

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• NANOMETROLOGY_Report.pdf (4199081 Byte)

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Comment on this nanoforum publication

jef, 25 March 2008

I am not able to download this report. Could someone send it to me by mail ?

jean-francois.burguet@student.uclouvain.be

Thanks

nasrin lotfi, 01 November 2006

It was helpful. It was better than this if it consists of PhD availability for whom interested in Nono sciences.

Abdul Rashid Zainal Abidin, 18 October 2006

This report highlights the importance of having a priori measurement infrastructure at the nanoscale to support and verify the measurement required in the manufacture of nanoproducts. Consistent nanoproducts can only be realised from consistent nanoscale measurements.

YUSUF, 15 October 2006

WONDERFUUL

Mridula Biswas, 01 September 2006

All the contents are full of knowledge. All are helping students as well as scientists and engineers. It is helping in opening new era in the field of science and technology.

David Elazar, 23 August 2006

I am not able to download this report. At 48% it just stops. Please advise.

Thanks

daelazar@iai.co.il