The Use of Image Processing Technique for TEM Images Analysis- Size Distribution Measurement of Nanoparticle

Mirzaei, Mohsen; Hosseini, Seyed Mohammad Sadegh

The Use of Image Processing Technique for TEM Images Analysis- Size Distribution Measurement of Nanoparticle

Document Type : Research Note

Authors

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, Rafsanjan, Iran

² Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Vali-e-Asr University, Rafsanjan, I.R. IRAN

Abstract

In this research, a new image processing method has been developed to separate and measure the distribution of nanoparticles in TEM images. In the proposed method, the pre-processing procedures, including median filter and histogram equalization, have been used to improve the image quality, then according to the auto-defined threshold, the image has been binarized. In the consequent procedures, in order to distinguish and separate the nanoparticles, the labeled connected component has been applied to the binary image. To validate the proposed method, the algorithm has been applied in two TEM images. The results were compared with the manual measurement while agreeing well with manual measurements. The merits of the proposed method are: the ability to analyze accurately the nano-clusters with a very high number of the particle as well as a low computational cost and fast processing, which makes it suitable to process large stacks of images, such as those generated by TEM.

Keywords