Investigations on the correlations of fragmentation, penetration and charge transfer of Pt and SiO2 particles due to inertial impaction on TEM grids, Cu and Si wafer targets

A simple method to reveal and study de-agglomeration and bouncing processes is the inertial impaction in a single-stage low pressure impactor (SS-LPI) with a downstream electrometer that monitors the penetration. In this study such a set-up was employed to sample deposited Pt and SiO2 agglomerates on TEM grids while bouncing fragments were detected simultaneously by the downstream electrometer. In this way light is shed on the correlation of deposition and de-agglomeration of agglomerates. In the case of bouncing, charge transfer can be observed as well. In order to investigate the effect of the target material on impact charging, SiO2 agglomerates and spheres have been impacted on conductive Cu and semi-conductive Si wafer targets.