Computer program for the grain analysis of AFM images of nanoparticles placed on a rough surface

摘要

Size is one of the most important characteristics of nanostructures and determines their properties. That is why it is very important to control the size and shape of these structures. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is widely used to visualize 3-D nanostructures, for example, nanoparticles placed on a surface. However, in many cases it is rather difficult to obtain accurate information about the size distribution of nanoparticles because of the complex structure of the substrate surface on which the particles are placed. Existing programs for grain detection and size distribution of nanoparticles are often not able to correctly process such AFM images of a surface. In this work, we propose to combine the existing methods for the grain detection and a priori information about shapes of nanoparticles. In particular, this allowed us to obtain better results in the grain analysis of sensors, which consisted of palladium nanoparticles grown on different substrates. Copyright (C) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.