Discover the incredible science of shape-shifting nanoparticles with Ask an Expert!
Get ready to enter the tiny, fascinating world of nanoparticles – we’re talking about the size of the particle smaller than 100 nanometers or 1/1000 of the thickness of a human hair! At this scale, the laws of physics start to behave differently, which is why nanoscience offers so many possibilities to scientists across almost every discipline.
Shape-shifting might sound more like a fantasy film than a research project, but when you heat up nanoparticles, they can undergo some very interesting shape changes. This is called thermally driven morphogenesis, and you could call it a hot topic in nanoscience! Understanding how nanoparticles change shape under different conditions is important for developing new materials with specific properties, like better electrical conductivity or improved catalytic activity.
Using analytical methods including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scientists like Tereza Košutova from Charles University have been able to observe this process in real-time, giving us a glimpse into this nano-scale world.
Identifying the shape-shifters
June 22 at 16:30 CEST, Tereza will be guest-hosting our upcoming Ask an Expert webinar! She’ll introduce her work, which explored both the thermally driven morphogenesis of niobium nanoparticles (Nb NPs) and their microstructural genesis at temperatures up to 800° C – and which saw her shortlisted for the Malvern Panalytical Scientific Award 2022.
In the department of condensed matter physics, Charles University in Prague, highly porous structures consisting of Nb core-shell NPs are created using magnetron sputtering and inert gas aggregation. By heating up the temperature in a controlled in-situ sample chamber, Tereza discovered interesting morphology, phase composition, and microstructure changes in those NPs using XRD methods! We won’t spoil the story for you, but if you’d like to know what happens at around 200 ° C, 450° C, and 600° C, this Ask an Expert session will provide all the exciting details.
Seeing at the nano-scale
Tereza and her team used small-angle X-ray scattering, X-ray diffraction, and electron microscopies to ‘see’ the nanoparticle world. Their aim was to characterize and understand the phase composition, morphology, and comprehensive structural properties of the nanoparticles (i.e., the size and shape distributions, lattice parameters, lattice defects, and size of coherently diffracting domains). That meant they needed a solid analytical strategy – which included the X’Pert3 MRD from Malvern Panalytical!
In this Ask an Expert! session on June 22, Tereza will explain more about how she set up her experiments – and how you can learn from her experience. If you’ve got questions already, you can email them to askanexpert@malvernpanalytical.com ahead of time to make sure they get answered! Otherwise, just bring them along on the day.
Register here for the webinar and save your seat!
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