State Key Laboratory of Low-Dimensional Quantum Physics, Department of Physics and Tsinghua-Foxconn Nanotechnology Research Center, Tsinghua University , Beijing 100084, China.
Nano Lett. 2014 Jun 11;14(6):3527-33. doi: 10.1021/nl5016969. Epub 2014 May 28.
Here we present a simple yet powerful approach for the imaging of nanostructures under an optical microscope with the help of vapor condensation on their surfaces. Supersaturated water vapor will first form a nanometer-sized water droplet on the condensation nuclei on the surface of nanostructures, and then the water droplet will grow bigger and scatter more light to make the outline of the nanostructure be visible under dark-field optical microscope. This vapor-condensation-assisted (VCA) optical microscopy is applicable to a variety of nanostructures from ultralong carbon nanotubes to functional groups, generating images with contrast coming from the difference in density of the condensation sites, and does not induce any impurities to the specimens. Moreover, this low-cost and efficient technique can be conveniently integrated with other facilities, such as Raman spectroscope and so forth, which will pave the way for widespread applications.
在这里，我们提出了一种简单而强大的方法，通过在纳米结构表面的蒸汽冷凝作用，在光学显微镜下对纳米结构进行成像。过饱和水蒸气将首先在纳米结构表面的冷凝核上形成纳米级的小水滴，然后小水滴会变大并散射更多的光，使得纳米结构的轮廓在暗场光学显微镜下可见。这种蒸气冷凝辅助（VCA）光学显微镜适用于从超长碳纳米管到官能团等各种纳米结构，其图像对比度来自于冷凝点密度的差异，且不会给样品带来任何杂质。此外，这种低成本、高效率的技术可以方便地与其他设备（如拉曼光谱仪等）集成，为广泛应用铺平道路。
