(279c) Particle Size and Shape Analysis and Reconstruction Using Two-Point Correlation Function for a Nanoparticle System

Nanoparticles play a key role in the fields of biomedicine, catalysis, electronics and environmental science. Crucial to the optimization and control of nanoparticle during synthesis is the material structure-property aspects which finally dictates their specific roles/function. In particular, the nanoparticle size and shape play an important role in determining the physical properties of the nanoparticles in various industrial applications. Although, there are many experimental and numerical techniques to calculate the nanoscale structure properties, there is a lack of techniques that can adequately calculate size and shape parameters for complex anisotropic nanoparticle shapes. This is mainly because the statistical aspects of the morphology need to be considered. In this talk, I present an all-encompassing algorithm that is based on the two-point correlation (2PC) functions which can directly provide the particle size, shape, and interparticle spacing as well as their distributions. Only a one-time effort is required to calculate the 2PC. Application of the technique to anisotropic nanoparticle systems, particles agglomerate, time-dependent shape evolution, 3D porous structures obtained from experimental characterization (microscopy imaging and tomography techniques) and computer simulations shall be demonstrated. The 2PC can be used to reconstruct a nanoparticle system which can serve as input to simulations. We believe that such a powerful tool can be beneficial for control and optimization of nanoparticle systems.