scholarly journals Transmission X-ray scattering as a probe for complex liquid-surface structures

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 519-531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masafumi Fukuto ◽  
Lin Yang ◽  
Dmytro Nykypanchuk ◽  
Ivan Kuzmenko

The need for functional materials calls for increasing complexity in self-assembly systems. As a result, the ability to probe both local structure and heterogeneities, such as phase-coexistence and domain morphologies, has become increasingly important to controlling self-assembly processes, including those at liquid surfaces. The traditional X-ray scattering methods for liquid surfaces, such as specular reflectivity and grazing-incidence diffraction, are not well suited to spatially resolving lateral heterogeneities due to large illuminated footprint. A possible alternative approach is to use scanning transmission X-ray scattering to simultaneously probe local intermolecular structures and heterogeneous domain morphologies on liquid surfaces. To test the feasibility of this approach, transmission small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (TSAXS/TWAXS) studies of Langmuir films formed on water meniscus against a vertically immersed hydrophilic Si substrate were recently carried out. First-order diffraction rings were observed in TSAXS patterns from a monolayer of hexagonally packed gold nanoparticles and in TWAXS patterns from a monolayer of fluorinated fatty acids, both as a Langmuir monolayer on water meniscus and as a Langmuir–Blodgett monolayer on the substrate. The patterns taken at multiple spots have been analyzed to extract the shape of the meniscus surface and the ordered-monolayer coverage as a function of spot position. These results, together with continual improvement in the brightness and spot size of X-ray beams available at synchrotron facilities, support the possibility of using scanning-probe TSAXS/TWAXS to characterize heterogeneous structures at liquid surfaces.

1998 ◽  
Vol 248 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 310-315 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Fradin ◽  
A. Braslau ◽  
D. Luzet ◽  
M. Alba ◽  
C. Gourier ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (a1) ◽  
pp. s391-s391
Author(s):  
Matej Jergel ◽  
Karol Vegso ◽  
Peter Šiffalovič ◽  
Eva Majková ◽  
Adeline Buffet ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (20) ◽  
pp. 7221-7229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireille Maret ◽  
Raluca Tiron ◽  
Xavier Chevalier ◽  
Patrice Gergaud ◽  
Ahmed Gharbi ◽  
...  

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-351 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. V. Nikolaev ◽  
S. N. Yakunin ◽  
I. A. Makhotkin ◽  
J. de la Rie ◽  
R. V. Medvedev ◽  
...  

A structural characterization of W/Si multilayers using X-ray reflectivity (XRR), scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) is presented. STEM images revealed lateral, periodic density fluctuations in the Si layers, which were further analysed using GISAXS. Characteristic parameters of the fluctuations such as average distance between neighbouring fluctuations, average size and lateral distribution of their position were obtained by fitting numerical simulations to the measured scattering images, and these parameters are in good agreement with the STEM observations. For the numerical simulations the density fluctuations were approximated as a set of spheroids distributed inside the Si layers as a 3D paracrystal (a lattice of spheroids with short-range ordering but lacking any long-range order). From GISAXS, the density of the material inside the density fluctuations is calculated to be 2.07 g cm−3 which is 89% of the bulk value of the deposited layer (2.33 g cm−3).


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