Positron annihilation was applied to measuring critical pore sizes in various materials. In recent years, positron annihilation with a variable-energy positron beam has emerged as a powerful tool for the investigation of porous thin films synthesized as low-k dielectrics, high performance gas sensor materials, and so on. This paper is a brief overview of recent progress in nanopore characterization of thin films by means of positron annihilation with a description of several important issues relevant to positron annihilation.
Positron (e⁺) and positronium (Ps) annihilation processes in polymers are studied by positron age-momentum correlation spectroscopy, which can sensitively probe momentum distributions of e⁺, p-Ps, and o-Ps. For polyether sulfone and ethylene tetrafluoroethylene copolymer belonging to oxygen-containing polymers (O group) and fluorine-containing polymers (F group), respectively, significant effects of positron trapping by polar element are observed. The Doppler profile of o-Ps pick-off annihilation is strongly influenced by F atoms, giving rise to anomalous broadening. The results are discussed together with our previous data of the S-I₃ correlation in order to explore the feasibility of chemical analysis around the free volumes by age-momentum correlation spectroscopy.
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