MICROSCOPY Vol.44▶No.1 2009
■Feature Articles: Application and Future Aspect of Electron Microscopy in Industry

Application of TEM to Soft Materials and Catalysts in the Advanced Industrial Materials

Yuji Otsuka, Takahiro Harada, Toshihiko Ito, Ukyo Matsuwaki, Akihiro Masuda and Mitsunobu Yasuda

Abstract: With progress of recent transmission electron microscope, daily TEM evaluation of the advanced industrial materials which tend to be diversified, complicated and minimized has been included not only morphological observation but also composition, chemical and electronic structure analysis in the company laboratory. However, to evaluate so-called soft matter such as polymers, biological samples and those compounds there are a lot of additional problems to peripheral techniques, i.e. sample preparation, electronic staining and so on. Additionally it is also a big problem for soft matter to suppress electron bombardment damage. In this paper, we show some TEM applications of soft matter in the company laboratory. Using several approaches which include focused ion beam method, cryo-EELS and transmission electron micro-tomography, we evaluate polymer compounds and catalysts in fuel cell electrodes. We also show current problem to study soft matter and future expectation.

Key words: soft matter, electron-staining, electron energy loss spectroscopy, transmission electron micro-tomography