Introduction

Visualization of embedded carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in polymer nanocomposites using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is shown to be a convenient and effective technique to evaluate CNT dispersion. However, the visibility of CNTs in a polymeric matrix is sensitive to many factors, such as the concentration and distribution of the CNTs, observation parameters, including accelerating voltage, current of primary electrons and scanning speed. Understanding these influencing factors provides helpful information for material scientists for obtaining SEM images of high quality.

Major goals the project:

• Investigating the influencing parameters on CNT visibility.
• Understanding the image mechanism.
• Evaluating image depth.

Recent SEM observation of CNT/epoxy composites prepared by stirring and calendering shows a good CNT dispersion in epoxy matrix favors the visibility of CNTs, and the CNTs exhibit improved bright contrast with increasing accelerating voltage.

Wissenschaftliche Kontakte und Kooperationen

• Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Fitting, Institute of Physics, University of Rostock