Flow detectors having mechanical oscillators, and use thereof in flow characterization systems

An improved system (100), resonator flow detector (102) and method for characterizing a fluid sample that includes o injecting a fluid sample into a mobile phase of a flow characterization system (106), and detecting a property of the fluid sample > or of a component thereof with a flow detector (102) comprising a mechanical resonator (120), preferably one that is operated at a frequency less than about 1 MHz, such as tuning fork resonator

High throughput microbalance and methods of using same

A method and apparatus for measurement of mass of small sample sizes. The method and apparatus is particularly adapted for providing microbalance measurement of solid materials as part of a combinatorial research program. The method and apparatus contemplate monitoring the response of a resonator holding a sample and correlating the response with mass change in the samples

Immersion scanning thermal microscopy:probing nanoscale heat transport in liquid environments

While Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) using locally heated nanoscale probes is known for its ability to map heat transport and thermal properties of materials and devices with micro and nanoscale resolution. Such studies in the liquid environments were perceived to be impossible due to dominating heat dissipation from the heated probe into the surrounding liquid that would also deteriorate spatial resolution. Here we show that contrary to the common belief, the heat generated by the SThM nanoscale probe remains localised within the well-defined nanoscale volume, and that the amount of local heat transfer to the sample is comparable to the one of the standard ambient environment in organic and inorganic liquids. Moreover, the presence of liquid provides highly stable thermal contact between the probe tip and the sample eliminating one of the major drawbacks of the ambient or vacuum SThM’s – variability of such contact. We show that such immersion SThM, or iSThM can effectively observe the semiconductor devices with the resolution of few tens of nanometres, providing new tool for exploring thermal effects of chemical reactions and biological processes with nanoscale resolution

High throughput microbalance and methods of using same

The method and apparatus is particularly adapted for providing microbalance measurement of solid materials as part of a combinatorial research program. The method and apparatus contemplate monitoring the response of a resonator holding a sample and correlating the response with mass change in the samples

Beating limitations of surface-bound SPM to explore nanoscale 3D physical properties of advanced materials and devices

While SPM enjoys great success in materials science due to outstanding sensitivity to local nanoscale physical properties of materials and devices, with lateral resolution down to atomic scale, these studies are inevitably bound to the immediate sample surface. This lecture presents successes and challenges of several key approaches allowing SPM to explore internal structure of studied samples ranging from the semiconductors to biological materials. These include Ar-ion nano-cross-sectioning SPM (xSPM), real time SPM nanotomography and ultrasound based subsurface SPM imaging

Systems and methods for monitoring solids using mechanical resonator

Multi-phase system monitoringmethods, systems and apparatus aredisclosed. Preferred embodiments comprise one or more mechanical resonator sensing elements. In preferred embodiments a sensor or a sensor subassembly is ported to a fluidized bed vessel such as a fluidized bed polymerization reactor

Nanomechanical morphology of amorphous, transition, and crystalline domains in phase change memory thin films

In the search for phase change materials (PCM) that may rival traditional random access memory, a complete understanding of the amorphous to crystalline phase transition is required. For the well-known Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) and GeTe (GT) chalcogenides, which display nucleation and growth dominated crystallization kinetics, respectively, this work explores the nanomechanical morphology of amorphous and crystalline phases in 50 nm thin films. Subjecting these PCM specimens to a lateral thermal gradient spanning the crystallization temperature allows for a detailed morphological investigation. Surface and depth-dependent analyses of the resulting amorphous, transition and crystalline regions are achieved with shallow angle cross-sections, uniquely implemented with beam exit Ar ion polishing. To resolve the distinct phases, ultrasonic force microscopy (UFM) with simultaneous topography is implemented revealing a relative stiffness contrast between the amorphous and crystalline phases of 14% for the free film surface and 20% for the cross-sectioned surface. Nucleation is observed to occur preferentially at the PCM-substrate and free film interface for both GST and GT, while fine subsurface structures are found to be sputtering direction dependent. Combining surface and cross-section nanomechanical mapping in this manner allows 3D analysis of microstructure and defects with nanoscale lateral and depth resolution, applicable to a wide range of materials characterization studies where the detection of subtle variations in elastic modulus or stiffness are required

High throughput microbalance and methods of using the same

A method and apparatus for measurement of mass of small sample sizes. The method and apparatus is particularly adapted for providing microbalance measurement of solid materials as part of a combinatorial research program. The method and apparatus contemplate monitoring the response of a resonator holding a sample and correlating the response with mass change in the samples

Measurements of nanoscale thermal properties of materials via Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM):Challenges and solutions

Scanning Thermal Microscopy (SThM) is one of the most universal methods for probing heat conductivity, interfacial thermal resistance and local temperature of materials and devices with nanoscale resolution. SThM uses a temperature sensitive heated probe with an apex of lateral dimensions ranging from a micrometre down to few nanometers that can contact a studied material or a nanoscale device at an arbitrary point on its surface. The tip-sample contact results in a heat flow from the heated tip to the sample - Qts that reduces a heater temperature Th, that is constantly monitored using a sensitive electronic circuit. SThM primary output signal is the heat flow Qts or a closely related parameter - total heater-sample thermal conductance Gts = Qts/(Th-Ts) where Ts is the temperature of the sample. As the tip scanned in a raster way across the sample surface, SThM output produces “thermal” maps reflecting spatial variations in the local sample thermal conductivity ks with the lateral resolution down to a few nanometers (1). A major challenge is the quantitative interpretation of SThM “thermal” signal as ks is fundamentally entangled with the tip-sample interfacial thermal conductance gif that directly depends on the geometry of the tip-surface contact, a generally unknown value that can also vary significantly during SThM measurements. In this paper we describe three linked approaches that allow to eliminate major variabilities in the SThM measurements as well as produce quantitative measurements of nanoscale thin layers of materials. First, we control the temperature of the sample Ts and the microscope base Tm via actively controlled Peltier heating/cooling elements with ~10 mK precision significantly improving the reproducibility of SThM signal by approximately 10 fold. Secondly, we use simultaneous measurement of shear forces and heat flow between the probe (2). As shear forces directly proportional to the contact area, the correlation observed allowed us to confirm the true ballistic nature of heat transport via nanoscale contacts in such a system, suggesting that even large – sub-micrometer sized contacts are composed by a multiple nanoscale junctions with the size below the mean-free-path of the heat carriers. Shear forces SThM allowed us to eliminate dependence of the SThM output on the most difficult to determine parameter – tip-surface contact geometry. Finally, we present a new paradigm of measurement of thermal conductance in the nanoscale thin layers of materials by producing a nanoscale cross-section of the material or device via SPM-friendly Ar ion polishing producing near-atomically low-angle wedge-shaped flat sections (3), followed by the SThM measurements of total thermal conductance Gts as a function of the wedge thickness t. The decrease of the thermal conductance as a function of edge thickness dGts/dt allows to exclusively determine thermal conductivity of the sample kts, eliminating necessity to know either the tip-sample interfacial thermal conductance gif or layer-substrate thermal conductance, two notoriously unknown parameters that render majority of SThM measurements to be merely qualitative

System for monitoring and controlling unit operations that include distillation

Fluid sensor methods and systems adapted for monitoring and/or controlling distillation operations in fluidic systems, such as bath distillation operations or continuous distillation operations, are disclosed. Preferred embodiments are directed to process monitoring and/or process control for unit operations involving endpoint determination of a distillation, for example, as applied to a liquid-component-switching operation (e.g., a solvent switehing operation), a liquid-liquid separation operation, a solute concentration operation, a dispersed- phase concentration operation, among others