Vapor-condensation-assisted optical microscopy for ultralong carbon nanotubes and other nanostructures.

Here we present a simple yet powerful approach for the imaging of nanostructures under an optical microscope with the help of vapor condensation on their surfaces. Supersaturated water vapor will first form a nanometer-sized water droplet on the condensation nuclei on the surface of nanostructures, and then the water droplet will grow bigger and scatter more light to make the outline of the nanostructure be visible under dark-field optical microscope. This vapor-condensation-assisted (VCA) optical microscopy is applicable to a variety of nanostructures from ultralong carbon nanotubes to functional groups, generating images with contrast coming from the difference in density of the condensation sites, and does not induce any impurities to the specimens. Moreover, this low-cost and efficient technique can be conveniently integrated with other facilities, such as Raman spectroscope and so forth, which will pave the way for widespread applications.