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Electron Microscopy
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One of the main scientific interests of many research groups in the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces is the knowledge of the morphological structure of the various types of synthetic and natural materials. The chemical and physical properties of these colloidal materials depend drastically on their chemical composition, the size of the structural elements and their spatial arrangement in the system and the media in which the components are dispersed. All these relations are necessary to develop interesting new organic and inorganic nanomaterials. Transmission, high-resolution scanning and environmental electron microscopy (TEM, SEM, ESEM) are powerful analytical tools to investigate different relationships between the morphological structures and the physical properties of colloidal systems and natural grown biomaterials on the one hand and also to study relationships between the synthesis and growing conditions and the produced morphological structures on the other hand. In particular electron microscopy is suitable to investigate hierarchical organised materials on different structural levels from the micron range down to molecular arrangements. Therefore, the electron microscopy group is working close together with priority with a number of groups of the colloid chemistry, interface and the biomaterials departments. Our main research activities are focussed on the electron microscopic exploration of the internal morphological structures and the surface structures of polymer micelles and particles, inorganic crystals and nano-particles, polyelectrolyte complex shells, composite materials, wood, biological cells, biominerals, hydrothermal synthesized and other biomimetic materials. The size of the structural elements, e.g. the diameters of dispersed particles, crystallites, fibres, capsules, pores or the mesh size of polymer networks, are in the range of 1 nm to 10 µm.
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| © 2012, Max-Planck-Institut für Kolloid- und Grenzflächenforschung, Potsdam |
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