TABLE OF CONTENTS Characterization of nanomaterials and nanostructures has been largely based on the surface analysis techniques and conventional characterization methods developed for bulk materials. For example, XRD has been widely used for the determination of crystallinity, crystal structures and lattice constants of nanoparticles, nanowires and thin films; SEM and TEM together with electron diffraction have been commonly used in characterization of nanoparticles; optical spectroscopy is used to determine the size of semiconductor quantum dots. SPM is a relatively new characterization technique and has found wide spread applications in nanotechnology. The two major members of the SPM family are scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Although both STM and AFM are true surface image techniques that can produce topographic images of a surface with atomic resolution in all three dimensions, combining with appropriately designed attachments, the STM and AFM have found a much broadened range of applications, such as nanoindentation, nanolithography (as discussed in the previous chapter), and patterned self-assembly. Almost all solid surfaces, whether hard or soft, electrically conductive or not, can all be studied with STM and AFM. Surfaces can be studied in gas such as air or vacuum or in liquid. In the following, we will briefly discuss the aforementioned characterization techniques and their applications in nanotechnology.
XRD is a very important experimental technique that has long been used to address all issues related to the crystal structure of solids, including lattice constants and geometry, identification of unknown materials, orientation...
