Physical effects that are important at our scale, such as gravity, are negligible at the micrometre scale and at the scale at which nanomateπals work. The molecular attraction forces and the surface effects are predominant. For this reason, it is important to know the chemical nature of nanomaterials' surfaces perfectly. There fore, surface-analysing techniques such as X photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) and time-of-flight secondary ions mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS) play a vital part and can be an efficient tool for the characterization of nanomaterials' surfaces. These two techniques can be used on a great variety of materials: metals, oxides, nitrates, carbides, organic compounds, etc., being either in bulk form as a thin film or in monolayer form.

Inspec keywords: secondary ion mass spectroscopy; time of flight mass spectroscopy; X-ray spectroscopy; X-ray photoelectron spectra

Other keywords: nanomaterials; ToF SIMS; time-of-flight spectroscopy; secondary ions mass spectroscopy; X photoemission spectroscopy; surface-analysing techniques; thin film

Subjects: X-ray, gamma-ray instruments and techniques