Investigation of falsified documents via direct analyte-probed nanoextraction coupled to nanospray mass spectrometry, fluorescence microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy.

Microscopy with direct analyte-probed nanoextraction coupled to nanospray ionization mass spectrometry (DAPNe-NSI-MS) is a direct extraction technique that extracts ultra-trace amounts of analyte. It has been proven to extract ink from documents with little to no physical or chemical footprint. In this study, DAPNe has been coupled to Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence microscopy, and NSI-MS to determine if an ink entry from a document was falsified. A handwritten number was altered using a different ink pen to test if the aforementioned techniques could discriminate the original number from the altered number, qualitatively and/or quantitatively. Chemical species from part of the original number, altered number, and a point at which both inks intersect were successfully differentiated by all techniques when using different pens. DAPNe coupled to fluorescence microscopy and Raman spectroscopy was not able to discriminate the forged ink entry when the exact same pen was used to modify the text (due to the same ink formula). However, DAPNe-NSI-MS successfully discerned that the pen was dispensed on different days by quantitating the oxidation process.

Electrodeposited defect chemistry superlattices.

Nanometer-scale layered structures based on thallium(III) oxide were electrodeposited in a beaker at room temperature by pulsing the applied potential during deposition. The conducting metal oxide samples were superlattices, with layers as thin as 6.7 nanometers. The defect chemistry was a function of the applied overpotential: High overpotentials favored oxygen vacancies, whereas low overpotentials favored cation interstitials. The transition from one defect chemistry to another in this nonequilibrium process occurred in the same potential range (100 to 120 millivolts) in which the rate of the back electron transfer reaction became significant. The epitaxial structures have the high carrier density and low electronic dimensionality of high transition temperature superconductors.

Scanning tunneling microscopy of electrodeposited ceramic superlattices.

Cleaved cross sections of nanometer-scale ceramic superlattices fabricated from materials of the lead-thallium-oxygen system were imaged in the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The apparent height differences between the layers were attributed to composition-dependent variations in local electrical properties. For a typical superlattice, the measured modulation wavelength was 10.6 nanometers by STM and 10.8 nanometers by x-ray diffraction. The apparent height profile for potentiostatically deposited superlattices was more square than that for galvanostatically deposited samples. These results suggest that the composition follows the applied potential more closely than it follows the applied current. The x-ray diffraction pattern of a superlattice produced under potential control had satellites out to the fourth order around the (420) Bragg reflection.