RESUMEN
The semiconductor industry continues to shrink the device sizes while applying more complex shapes and using diverse materials, which requires parallel improvements in the quality of ultrapure reagents. The need for ultrapure reagents has led to ever-higher demands for the performance of analytical instruments used to detect ultratrace impurities. In this study, nonvolatile impurities in ultrapure reagents were quantified using a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS). The performances of three different sample introduction systems, i.e., an electrospray (ES), an aerosol generator with a heating chamber and a Nafion desolvation membrane (NB-II), and a MicroMist nebulizer with a heated cyclonic spray chamber and a three-stage Peltier-cooled desolvation system (MM-APEX), were evaluated for the lower limit of detection of a SMPS. The MM-APEX equipped with the SMPS was able to detect NaCl additives at a concentration of 100 parts per trillion (ppt, ng/L) in ultrapure water, which was approximately 104- and 102-fold lower than those of ES and NB-II, respectively. The practical application of MM-APEX with the SMPS for commercial isopropanol samples was also studied. The results clearly demonstrate that the impurity concentrations presented by the NaCl-equivalent concentrations among different sources of isopropanol were at the ppt to parts-to-billion (ppb) scale. The SMPS system equipped with MM-APEX is capable of recognizing impurities with concentrations ranging from tens ppt to thousands of parts per million (ppm), which is beneficial for an ultratrace analysis of nonvolatile impurities in semiconductor process chemicals.
RESUMEN
We describe the outcome of a large international interlaboratory study of the measurement of particle number concentration of colloidal nanoparticles, project 10 of the technical working area 34, "Nanoparticle Populations" of the Versailles Project on Advanced Materials and Standards (VAMAS). A total of 50 laboratories delivered results for the number concentration of 30 nm gold colloidal nanoparticles measured using particle tracking analysis (PTA), single particle inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (spICP-MS), ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) light spectroscopy, centrifugal liquid sedimentation (CLS) and small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The study provides quantitative data to evaluate the repeatability of these methods and their reproducibility in the measurement of number concentration of model nanoparticle systems following a common measurement protocol. We find that the population-averaging methods of SAXS, CLS and UV-Vis have high measurement repeatability and reproducibility, with between-labs variability of 2.6%, 11% and 1.4% respectively. However, results may be significantly biased for reasons including inaccurate material properties whose values are used to compute the number concentration. Particle-counting method results are less reproducibile than population-averaging methods, with measured between-labs variability of 68% and 46% for PTA and spICP-MS respectively. This study provides the stakeholder community with important comparative data to underpin measurement reproducibility and method validation for number concentration of nanoparticles.
RESUMEN
Gold-magnetite heterostructures are novel nanomaterials which can rapidly catalyze the reduction reaction of nitroaromatics. In this study, the interfacially structural and electronic properties of various morphologies of Au-Fe3O4 heterostructures were systematically investigated using X-ray absorbance spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The effect of change in electronic structure and charge transfer on electrochemically catalytic activity of Au-Fe3O4 heterostructures was further evaluated by oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). The shifts in binding energy of Au4f and Fe2p peaks in XPS spectra indicate the charge transfer between the Au and Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The increase in d-hole population of Au seeds after the conjugation with iron oxides follows the order flower-like Au-Fe3O4 (FLNPs)>dumbbell-like Au-Fe3O4 (DBNPs)>Au seeds. In addition, the Fe(2+) valence state increases in Au-Fe3O4 heterostructures, which provides evidence to support the hypothesis of charge transfer between Au and Fe3O4 nanoparticles. The theoretical simulation of Au L3-edge XAS further confirms the production of Au-Fe and Au-O bonds at the interface of Au/Fe3O4 and the epitaxial linkage relationship between Au and Fe3O4 nanoparticles. In addition, the electron deficient of Au seeds increases upon increasing Fe3O4 nanoparticles on a single Au seed, and subsequently decreases the catalytic activity of Au in the Au-Fe3O4 heterostructures. The catalytic activity of Au-Fe3O4 toward ORR follows the order Au seeds>Au-Fe3O4 DBNPs>Au-Fe3O4 FLNPs, which is positively correlated to the extent of electronic deficiency of Au in Au-Fe3O4 heterostructures.
