Parameters affecting the accuracy of nanoparticle shape and size measurement in 3D

Misa Hayashida; Kai Cui; Darren Homeniuk; Rinyaporn Phengchat; Arthur M Blackburn; Marek Malac

doi:10.1016/j.micron.2019.102680

Parameters affecting the accuracy of nanoparticle shape and size measurement in 3D

Micron. 2019 Aug:123:102680. doi: 10.1016/j.micron.2019.102680. Epub 2019 May 13.

Authors

Misa Hayashida¹, Kai Cui², Darren Homeniuk², Rinyaporn Phengchat³, Arthur M Blackburn⁴, Marek Malac⁵

Affiliations

¹ NRC-NANO, National Research Council Canada, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2M9, Canada. Electronic address: [email protected].
² NRC-NANO, National Research Council Canada, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2M9, Canada.
³ Kobe University, 3-11 Tsurukabuto, Nada-ku, Kobe, 657-8501, Japan.
⁴ University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road Victoria, British Colombia, V8W 2Y2, Canada.
⁵ NRC-NANO, National Research Council Canada, 11421 Saskatchewan Drive, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2M9, Canada; Department of Physics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E1, Canada.

PMID: 31146186
DOI: 10.1016/j.micron.2019.102680

Abstract

While electron tomography can be used to visualize objects at nanoscale, it is difficult to perform reproducible quantitative measurements. Here we measure the shape and size of nanoparticles (NPs) in three dimensions (3D) using electron tomography. We evaluated the accuracy of maximum Feret diameter (Feret_max), minimum Feret diameter (Feret_mini) and volume of NPs measurements from reconstructed 3D images which were obtained from data acquired with varied electron dose. We perform both simulations and experiment to clarify what factors effect on the accuracy of the NP shape measurement. Based on the results, suitable reconstruction methods and threshold for binarization were evaluated. We also report comparison results obtained on exactly the same samples in two different laboratories.

Keywords: 3D measurement accuracy; Diameter measurement; Electron tomography; Feret diameter; Image binarization threshold; Image processing; Nanoparticles; Tomography reconstruction method; Volume measurement.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't