TY - JOUR
T1 - Depth mapping of metallic nanowire polymer nanocomposites by scanning dielectric microscopy
AU - Balakrishnan, Harishankar
AU - Millan-Solsona, Ruben
AU - Checa, Marti
AU - Fabregas, Rene
AU - Fumagalli, Laura
AU - Gomila, Gabriel
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Competitividad and EU FEDER through Grant No. PID2019-111376RA-I00 and the Generalitat de Catalunya through Grant No. 2017-SGR1079, and the CERCA Program. This work also received funding from the European Commission under Grant Agreement No. H2020-MSCA-721874 (SPM2.0). R. F and L. F. received funding from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (grants 842402, Dielec2DBiomolecules) and the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 819417, Liquid2DM) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. We acknowledge Dr A. Kyndiah for support in the preparation of the nanocomposite materials.
Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economıa, Industria y Competitividad and EU FEDER through Grant No. PID2019-111376RA-I00 and the Generalitat de Catalunya through Grant No. 2017-SGR1079, and the CERCA Program. This work also received funding from the European Commission under Grant Agreement No. H2020-MSCA-721874 (SPM2.0). R. F and L. F. received funding from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (grants 842402, Dielec2DBiomolecules) and the European Research Council (grant agreement no. 819417, Liquid2DM) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program. We acknowledge Dr A. Kyndiah for support in the preparation of the nanocomposite materials.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry.
PY - 2021/6/14
Y1 - 2021/6/14
N2 - Polymer nanocomposite materials based on metallic nanowires are widely investigated as transparent and flexible electrodes or as stretchable conductors and dielectrics for biosensing. Here we show that Scanning Dielectric Microscopy (SDM) can map the depth distribution of metallic nanowires within the nanocomposites in a non-destructive way. This is achieved by a quantitative analysis of sub-surface electrostatic force microscopy measurements with finite-element numerical calculations. As an application we determined the three-dimensional spatial distribution of ∼50 nm diameter silver nanowires in ∼100 nm-250 nm thick gelatin films. The characterization is done both under dry ambient conditions, where gelatin shows a relatively low dielectric constant, ϵr ∼ 5, and under humid ambient conditions, where its dielectric constant increases up to ϵr ∼ 14. The present results show that SDM can be a valuable non-destructive subsurface characterization technique for nanowire-based nanocomposite materials, which can contribute to the optimization of these materials for applications in fields such as wearable electronics, solar cell technologies or printable electronics.
AB - Polymer nanocomposite materials based on metallic nanowires are widely investigated as transparent and flexible electrodes or as stretchable conductors and dielectrics for biosensing. Here we show that Scanning Dielectric Microscopy (SDM) can map the depth distribution of metallic nanowires within the nanocomposites in a non-destructive way. This is achieved by a quantitative analysis of sub-surface electrostatic force microscopy measurements with finite-element numerical calculations. As an application we determined the three-dimensional spatial distribution of ∼50 nm diameter silver nanowires in ∼100 nm-250 nm thick gelatin films. The characterization is done both under dry ambient conditions, where gelatin shows a relatively low dielectric constant, ϵr ∼ 5, and under humid ambient conditions, where its dielectric constant increases up to ϵr ∼ 14. The present results show that SDM can be a valuable non-destructive subsurface characterization technique for nanowire-based nanocomposite materials, which can contribute to the optimization of these materials for applications in fields such as wearable electronics, solar cell technologies or printable electronics.
U2 - 10.1039/d1nr01058a
DO - 10.1039/d1nr01058a
M3 - Article
C2 - 34060583
VL - 13
SP - 10116
EP - 10126
JO - Nanoscale
JF - Nanoscale
SN - 2040-3372
IS - 22
ER -