Measuring the randomness of micro- and nanostructure spatial distributions: Effects of scanning electron microscope image processing and analysis.
Nearest Neighbour Index
nanostructures
noise
point pattern analysis
scanning electron microscopy
Journal
Journal of microscopy
ISSN: 1365-2818
Titre abrégé: J Microsc
Pays: England
ID NLM: 0204522
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
01 2023
01 2023
Historique:
revised:
31
08
2022
received:
10
04
2022
accepted:
28
09
2022
pubmed:
8
10
2022
medline:
15
12
2022
entrez:
7
10
2022
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
The quantitative characterisation of the degree of randomness and aggregation of surface micro- and nanostructures is critical to evaluate their effects on targeted functionalities. To this end, the methods of point pattern analysis (PPA), largely used in ecology and medical imaging, seem to provide a powerful toolset. However, the application of these techniques requires the extraction of the point pattern of nanostructures from their microscope images. In this work, we address the issue of the impact that Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image processing may have on the fundamental metric of PPA, that is, the Nearest Neighbour Index (NNI). Using typical SEM images of polymer micro- and nanostructures taken from secondary and backscattered electrons, we report the effects of the (a) noise filtering and (b) binarisation threshold on the value of NNI as well as the impact of the image finite size effects. Based on these results, we draw conclusions for the safe choice of SEM settings to provide accurate measurement of nanostructure randomness through NNI estimation.
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
48-57Informations de copyright
© 2022 Royal Microscopical Society.
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