title: Characterization of nanomaterials by physical methods.
abstract: Much progress in nanoscience and nanotechnology has been made in the past few years thanks to the increased availability of sophisticated physical methods to characterize nanomaterials. These techniques include electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopies, in addition to standard techniques such as X-ray and neutron diffraction, X-ray scattering, and various spectroscopies. Characterization of nanomaterials includes the determination not only of size and shape, but also of the atomic and electronic structures and other important properties. In this article we describe some of the important methods employed for characterization of nanostructures, describing a few case studies for illustrative purposes. These case studies include characterizations of Au, ReO(3), and GaN nanocrystals; ZnO, Ni, and Co nanowires; inorganic and carbon nanotubes; and two-dimensional graphene.
authors.affiliation: Chemistry and Physics of Materials Unit, and CSIR Center of Excellence in Chemistry, Jawaharlal Nehru Center for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore 560064, India. cnrrao@jncasr.ac.in
authors.forename: C N R
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Kanishka
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Biswas