Nanostructures

TempFix is a mounting adhesive with unique properties that make it suitable for mounting of all types of nanomaterials that do not adhere to a substrate naturally. TempFix is a wax-like material that comes from the vendor in stick form. The technique for using TempFix as a mounting material is rather simple and fast. Simply warm a 15mm diameter metal AFM sample disk to slightly warmer than can be touched by hand, rub the end of the TempFix stick in a spiral to melt a thin and even layer across the surface and allow it to cool. Next, warm the substrate up again until the surface is slightly tacky to the touch, then apply particles and let it cool. It is important in the second heating not to exceed the melting temperature of TempFix to eliminate the particles from sinking into the material below the surface.

Even if the nanoparticles do sink into the surface of the TempFix a little bit, there generally is enough agglomeration that there always will be enough of the nanomaterials sticking up out of the TempFix so that good data can be obtained.

Figure 8 is an optical microscope view of a powder distributed over TempFix using the method described above. Figure 9 is a 40 µm × 40 µm AFM scan of an area of the TempFix surface that is displayed in a 3d topographic view. In figure 9 we see that the average roughness of the TempFix is ~25 nm with the bright peaks caused by a nanopowder measuring 170 nm in height. Finally, in Figure 10 is an AFM image of one of the larger particles seen in the optical microscope image, figure 8.