Characterization, when used in materials science, refers to the broad and general process by which a material's structure and properties are probed and measured. It is a fundamental process in the field of materials science, without which no scientific understanding of engineering materials could be ascertained. The scope of the term often differs; some definitions limit the term's use to techniques which study the microscopic structure and properties of materials, while others use the term to refer to any materials analysis process including macroscopic techniques such as mechanical testing, thermal analysis and density calculation. The scale of the structures observed in materials characterization ranges from

angstroms The angstromEntry "angstrom" in the Oxford online dictionary. Retrieved on 2019-03-02 from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/angstrom.Entry "angstrom" in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary. Retrieved on 2019-03-02 from https://www.m ...

, such as in the imaging of individual atoms and chemical bonds, up to centimeters, such as in the imaging of coarse grain structures in metals. While many characterization techniques have been practiced for centuries, such as basic optical microscopy, new techniques and methodologies are constantly emerging. In particular the advent of the

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

and

secondary ion mass spectrometry Secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a technique used to analyze the composition of solid surfaces and thin films by sputtering the surface of the specimen with a focused primary ion beam and collecting and analyzing ejected secondary ions. ...

in the 20th century has revolutionized the field, allowing the imaging and analysis of structures and compositions on much smaller scales than was previously possible, leading to a huge increase in the level of understanding as to why different materials show different properties and behaviors.Mathys, Daniel, Zentrum für Mikroskopie,

University of Basel The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universit ...

: ''Die Entwicklung der Elektronenmikroskopie vom Bild über die Analyse zum Nanolabor'', p. 8 More recently, atomic force microscopy has further increased the maximum possible resolution for analysis of certain samples in the last 30 years.

Microscopy

Microscopy is a category of characterization techniques which probe and map the surface and sub-surface structure of a material. These techniques can use

photon A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they a ...

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no ...

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conve ...

s or physical cantilever probes to gather data about a sample's structure on a range of length scales. Some common examples of microscopy techniques include: *

Optical microscopy Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultravio ...

* Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) *

Transmission electron microscopy Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a microscopy technique in which a beam of electrons is transmitted through a specimen to form an image. The specimen is most often an ultrathin section less than 100 nm thick or a suspension on a g ...

(TEM) *

Field ion microscopy The Field ion microscope (FIM) was invented by Müller in 1951. It is a type of microscope that can be used to image the arrangement of atoms at the surface of a sharp metal tip. On October 11, 1955, Erwin Müller and his Ph.D. student, Kanwar ...

(FIM) * Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) ** Atomic force microscopy (AFM) **

Scanning tunneling microscopy A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is a type of microscope used for imaging surfaces at the atomic level. Its development in 1981 earned its inventors, Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, then at IBM Zürich, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986. ...

(STM) * X-ray diffraction topography (XRT)

Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy is a category of characterization techniques which use a range of principles to reveal the chemical composition, composition variation, crystal structure and photoelectric properties of materials. Some common examples of spectroscopy techniques include:

Optical radiation

* Ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) * Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) * Thermoluminescence (TL) * Photoluminescence (PL)

X-ray

* X-ray diffraction (XRD) *

Small-angle X-ray scattering Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is a small-angle scattering technique by which nanoscale density differences in a sample can be quantified. This means that it can determine nanoparticle size distributions, resolve the size and shape of (monodi ...

(SAXS) *

Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS, EDX, EDXS or XEDS), sometimes called energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA or EDAX) or energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis (EDXMA), is an analytical technique used for the elemental analysis or chemi ...

(EDX, EDS) *

Wavelength dispersive X-ray spectroscopy Wavelength-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (WDXS or WDS) is a non-destructive analysis technique used to obtain elemental information about a range of materials by measuring characteristic x-rays within a small wavelength range. The technique gener ...

(WDX, WDS) *

Electron energy loss spectroscopy In electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) a material is exposed to a beam of electrons with a known, narrow range of kinetic energies. Some of the electrons will undergo inelastic scattering, which means that they lose energy and have their pa ...

(EELS) *

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) is a surface-sensitive quantitative spectroscopic technique based on the photoelectric effect that can identify the elements that exist within a material (elemental composition) or are covering its surface, ...

(XPS) * Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) *

X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) in physics and chemistry, is a novel technique that exploits a Coherence (physics), coherent X-ray synchrotron beam to measure the dynamics of a sample. By recording how coherent speckle fluctuations ...

(XPCS)

Mass spectrometry

*Modes of mass spectrometry: ** Electron ionization (EI) **

Thermal ionization mass spectrometry Thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) is also known as surface ionization and is a highly sensitive isotope mass spectrometry characterization technique. The isotopic ratios of radionuclides are used to get an accurate measurement for the ele ...

(TI-MS) **

MALDI-TOF In mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) is an ionization technique that uses a laser energy absorbing matrix to create ions from large molecules with minimal fragmentation. It has been applied to the analysis of ...

Secondary ion mass spectrometry Secondary-ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a technique used to analyze the composition of solid surfaces and thin films by sputtering the surface of the specimen with a focused primary ion beam and collecting and analyzing ejected secondary ions. ...

(SIMS)

Nuclear spectroscopy

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, most commonly known as NMR spectroscopy or magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), is a spectroscopic technique to observe local magnetic fields around atomic nuclei. The sample is placed in a magnetic fie ...

(NMR) *

Mössbauer spectroscopy Mössbauer spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique based on the Mössbauer effect. This effect, discovered by Rudolf Mössbauer (sometimes written "Moessbauer", German: "Mößbauer") in 1958, consists of the nearly recoil-free emission and abs ...

(MBS) *

Perturbed angular correlation The perturbed γ-γ angular correlation, PAC for short or PAC-Spectroscopy, is a method of nuclear solid-state physics with which magnetic and electric fields in crystal structures can be measured. In doing so, electrical field gradients and the L ...

(PAC)

Other

* Photon correlation spectroscopy/

Dynamic light scattering Dynamic light scattering (DLS) is a technique in physics that can be used to determine the size distribution profile of small particles in suspension or polymers in solution. In the scope of DLS, temporal fluctuations are usually analyzed using ...

(DLS) * Terahertz spectroscopy (THz) * Electron paramagnetic/spin resonance (EPR, ESR) *

Small-angle neutron scattering Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) is an experimental technique that uses elastic neutron scattering at small scattering angles to investigate the structure of various substances at a mesoscopic scale of about 1–100 nm. Small angle n ...

(SANS) *

Rutherford backscattering spectrometry Rutherford backscattering spectrometry (RBS) is an analytical technique used in materials science. Sometimes referred to as high-energy ion scattering (HEIS) spectrometry, RBS is used to determine the structure and composition of materials by mea ...

(RBS)

Macroscopic testing

A huge range of techniques are used to characterize various macroscopic properties of materials, including: * Mechanical testing, including tensile, compressive, torsional, creep, fatigue, toughness and hardness testing *

Differential thermal analysis Differential thermal analysis (DTA) is a thermoanalytic technique that is similar to differential scanning calorimetry. In DTA, the material under study and an inert reference are made to undergo identical thermal cycles, (i.e., same cooling or ...

(DTA) *

Dielectric thermal analysis Dielectric thermal analysis (DETA), or dielectric analysis (DEA), is a materials science technique similar to dynamic mechanical analysis except that an oscillating electrical field is used instead of a mechanical force. For investigation of the c ...

(DEA, DETA) *

Thermogravimetric analysis Thermogravimetric analysis or thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) is a method of thermal analysis in which the mass of a sample is measured over time as the temperature changes. This measurement provides information about physical phenomena, such ...

(TGA) * Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) *

Impulse excitation technique The impulse excitation technique (IET) is a non-destructive material characterization technique to determine the elastic properties and internal friction of a material of interest. It measures the resonant frequencies in order to calculate the You ...

(IET) *

Ultrasound Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies ...

techniques, including

resonant ultrasound spectroscopy Resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) is a laboratory technique used in geology and material science to measure fundamental material properties involving elasticity. This technique relies on the fact that solid objects have natural frequencies at ...

and time domain

ultrasonic testing Ultrasonic testing (UT) is a family of non-destructive testing techniques based on the propagation of ultrasonic waves in the object or material tested. In most common UT applications, very short ultrasonic pulse-waves with center frequencies ...

methodsR. Truell, C. Elbaum and C.B. Chick., Ultrasonic methods in solid state physics New York, Academic Press Inc., 1969.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Characterization (Materials Science) Materials science