Dynamics of nanometer- and submicrometer-sized particles in suspension probed by dynamic ultrasound scattering techniques

The Dynamic ultraSound Scattering (DSS) technique, which is an acoustic analog of dynamic light scattering (DLS), has been developed to achieve particle sizing with a wide range of particle sizes from nanometers to micrometers. In the submicron regime, it was difficult to evaluate the particle size by DSS because of the competition between the Brownian and sedimentation motions as we addressed in the previous work [Igarashi et al., J. Appl. Phys. 115, 203506 (2014)]. We propose here a new function to evaluate the particle size in the submicron regime, and with 10% accuracy, the good agreement between DSS and Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy results was confirmed. By improving the transducer, the recording system, as well as the analysis technique, the detectable particle size by the DSS technique now could be extended down to several tens of nanometers. Published by AIP Publishing.