title: Drop-casted self-assembling graphene oxide membranes for scanning electron microscopy on wet and dense gaseous samples.
abstract: Graphene oxide sheets dispersed in water and many other solvents can spontaneously assemble into a surface film covering an evaporating droplet due to their amphiphilicity. Thus, graphene oxide membranes with controllable thickness suspended over an orifice have been directly fabricated using a simple drop-cast approach. Mechanical properties and electron transparency tests of these membranes show their use as electron transparent, but molecularly impenetrable, windows for environmental electron microscopy in liquids and dense gaseous media. The foreseeable, broader application of this drop-cast window methodology is the creation of access spots for electron probes to study isolated microsamples in their natural, undisrupted state within the interior of prefabricated devices (such as microfluidic chips or sealed containers of biological, chemically reactive, toxic, or forensic materials).
authors: Department of Physics, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901, United States.
authors: Mark
authors: M
authors: Krueger
authors: Shannon
authors: S
authors: Berg
authors: D'Arcy
authors: D
authors: Stone
authors: Evgheni
authors: E
authors: Strelcov
authors: Dmitriy A
authors: DA
authors: Dikin
authors: Jaemyung
authors: J
authors: Kim
authors: Laura J
authors: LJ
authors: Cote
authors: Jiaxing
authors: J
authors: Huang
authors: Andrei
authors: A
authors: Kolmakov
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods; D005740:Gases / Q000032:analysis* / Q000737:chemistry*; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D008422:Materials Testing / Q000379:methods*; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning / Q000379:methods*; D015336:Molecular Probe Techniques; D010087:Oxides / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D005740:Gases; D008567:Membranes, Artificial; D010087:Oxides; D006108:Graphite