Novel bottom-up designed materials currently constitute the major source of innovations in electronics, optics, energy harvesting/storage, catalysis and bio-medical applications. The performance of these new materials and devices depends on physicochemical processes taking place at the interface between the material the environment (i.e. electrolyte, water, air, blood plasma etc). Understanding and tuning the surface properties and performance of these materials requires in situ spectroscopic access to interfacial processes under operando conditions at their natural length scales. Here, we demonstrate the capability to perform XPS (X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy) and SEM scanning electron microscopy through graphene based membranes that are only few layers thin and molecularly impenetrable. Different from standard environmental XPS and SEM our approach is based on the recent developments in fabrication and transfer of ultrathin (~1 nm) membranes, such as GO or graphene sheets with thicknesses comparable to the effective attenuation length (EAL) of 200-1000 eV electrons.

Andrei Kolmakov is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Graduated from Moscow Institute of Physics & Technology (MIPT). Combining his postgraduate studies at MIPT and work as a staff member at Kurchatov Institute (Moscow) he received his PhD in solid state physics in 1996. During his postdoctoral work at European synchrotron radiation centers in the groups of Dr. Maya Kiskinova (ELETTRA) and Prof. Thomas Moeller (HASYLAB) he was studying the surface, interfacial and kinetics processes on supported nano-(meso) particles and free clusters using photoelectron spectroscopy, XANES and imaging PEEM / SPEM techniques. In 1999 he joined the group of Prof. Wayne Goodman at Texas A&M University to conduct in situ STM studies on supported metal clusters under reaction conditions. In 2001 his was invited to UCSB to launch scanning tunneling microscopy part of AFOSR funded program on catalysis by nanostructures which also resulted in 2002 in fabrication of one of the first metal oxide nanowire based chemical sensor and catalyst (together with Prof. Martin Moskovits). He joined the faculty of the Department of Physics, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 2005. Prof. Andrei Kolmakov is mainly known for his work on gas sensing and catalysis by metal oxide nanowires. In addition to active materials research and studies of nanoscopic sensors and analytical devices, Kolmakov's group is actively working on development of the methodology and hardware for in situ / in vivo spectromicroscopy of the nanostructures under real world conditions, fully hydrated objects and nanodevices under operating conditions. Prof. A. Kolmakov published over 80 papers, 5 review articles and 2 book chapters with total citation index over 2000.

(Source: http://www.physics.siu.edu/people/kolmakov/)

Mark Krueger, Joshua Stoll, Dmitriy A. Dikin, Laura J. Cote, Jiaxing Huang, Majid Kazemian Abyaneh, Matteo Amati, Luca Gregoratti, Sebastian Günther, Maya Kiskinova, Andrei Kolmakov

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Andrei Kolmakov (2013), "[Illinois] AVS Meeting 2012: Photoelectron and Electron Spectro-Microscopy in Liquids and Dense Gaseous Environment Using Electron Transparent Membranes," https://nanohub.org/resources/18254.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. AVS
2. avs 2012
3. electron microscopy
4. Illinois
5. NanoBio Node at Illinois
6. photoelectron microscopy
7. transparent membrane