SPI Mica Sheets and Disks
Some tips from users
Occurrence of "dots" on freshly cleaved mica
It has been reported to us that some users of mica have found tiny "nano
dots" on the surface of their freshly cleaved mica, with heights between 1-2
nm. Some times the heights can be as much as 5 nm. The concentration of
these "dots" can be as large as 20 such dots within a
5 x 105 nm2 area.
For those wanting to study nanoparticles in the size range of 2-10 nm, these
features cause confusion in the measurements. One recent publication has
touched on this issue: Ramachandran et al., Nanotechnology 9 237 (1998).
We have been asked to comment on what are these features, where might they be coming from and
how one might get rid of them.
We do not ourselves know the answer to this question, however, at least one AFM user who has
seen these "dots" suspects they might be residue from water and suggests looking at a cleaved
surface that has not been exposed to water and see if the frequency of occurrence of the dots
stays the same or goes down.
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Monday March 22, 2010
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