NanoXCT

Nano scale material analytics

All the tremendous achievements in miniaturization from micro to nano-scale would not have been possible without the material analytics in behind. Material analytics for nano-scale characterization currently covers destructive methods, surface inspection methods, or 2D methods. However, yet it is not possible to get a comprehensive representation of a specimen including internal and external 3D-structure analysis as well as a chemical analysis without destroying the sample. 

Within the past decades, advances in miniaturization from micro to nano-scale have had dramatic impacts on our lives. Consumer electronics, e.g. computers or telephones, which once occupied large volumes, now fit in the palm of a hand. But nanotechnology does not only improve the area of electronics. In material sciences nanotechnology boosts the design of novel materials: e.g., polymers get mechanically strengthened with carbon nanotubes, which are more elastic and more robust than steel. In chemical engineering nano-structured surfaces are applied as efficient catalysts. Also in combination with biology, nanotechnology is highly interesting and an active field of research. All these tremendous achievements would not have been possible without the material analytics in behind. Material analytics for nano-scale characterization currently covers destructive methods (e.g., focused ion beam FIB), surface inspection methods (e.g. scanning electron microscope SEM, Atomic force microscopy AFM), or 2D methods (e.g. X-ray Diffraction Analysis XRDA). However, yet it is not possible to get a comprehensive representation of a specimen including internal and external 3D-structure analysis as well as a chemical analysis without destroying the sample. In this respect nano-scale material analytics is currently on the edge of a new era, which is targeted in this project. The main focus in the NanoXCT project is put on a novel technique to facilitate a fully three dimensional and nondestructive structural and chemical characterization of internal and external features in the nano-scale.

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