Pore morphologies in disordered nanoporous thin films

Abstract

Materials with nanometer size heterogeneities are commonplace in the chemical and biological sciences (e.g, polymer blends, microemulsions, gels) and often exhibit complex morphologies. Although this morphology has a dramatic effect on the materials' properties, it is often difficult to accurately characterize. We describe a method, using small-angle X-ray scattering data, of generating representative three-dimensional morphologies of isotropic two-phase materials where the morphology is disordered, and we apply this to thin films containing nanometer sized pores with a range of porosities (4 - 44%). These representations provide a visualization of the pore morphology, give the pore size scale and extent of interconnection, and permit the determination of the transitions from closed pore to interconnected pores to bicontinuous morphology.