Carbon has attracted a great deal of interest in the scientific community due to the discovery of several allotropes (i.e., fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, graphene). Carbon-based nanomaterials demonstrate unprecedented physical and chemical properties such as high strength, excellent resistance to corrosion and exceptional electrical and thermal conduction and stability. Because of these unique features, nano-carbon materials are used in a wide range of fields, including biology, energy storage and medicine. However, despite numerous advances in the past decades, researchers still face challenges regarding the synthesis, uniformity and reproducibility in the growth of carbon materials. To overcome these issues and to be able to develop new applications of this material, specific and rigorous characterization is primordial.
A technique often used to analyze carbon nanomaterials is Raman scattering. Since Raman spectroscopy can be used to study vibrational states, it provides direct information on the structural properties of a given sample. Photon etc. uses the intrinsic specificity of Raman scattering combined with the speed of global imaging in RIMA™, a state-of-the-art non-invasive instrument that expands the horizons of traditional sample analysis. With outstanding speed, sensitivity and resolution, RIMA™ provides large maps (hundreds of microns and more) of defects, number of layers, uniformity, population distribution, impurities and stacking order of your carbon-based materials.
For more details and results from our collaborators, see the application notes below.