I wish you all new opportunities, ideas and the realisation of them in grants, discoveries and high-ranking journal articles. I hope the New Year brings peace to our collapsing world🕊  P.S. No scientific meaning lies behind the illustration, just fun. #merrychristmas #sciart

I made this greeting card out of some #proteins, #DNA strains and drug delivery vehicles. Mischief managed 👣 ⚡ #Science #6rib #4uqj #1yce #nanoparticles #silica #goldstar #zif #polimer

PS. Indicate in your papers the instrument parameters that you used in the measurements, as well as the primary data, such as the correlation and the distribution functions, this will help your colleagues verify the accuracy of the experiments. So, good luck with your work! 😊

12. Work with a low dose of electrons and try measuring the area of interest several times on TEM. The electron gun can cause damage to the sample, which can produce artefacts that may be falsely identified as a particle. It's a bad idea to measure ice at room temperature

11. Change the weighting procedure. The difference in DLS and TEM results for aggregates is often due to the weighting method. Try to use volume- instead of intensity-weighted, but best of all, a number-weighted. Important to weigh and measure ingredients using appropriate method

10. Remember about sample preparation technique. Drying the sample for cryo-TEM may be a factor in reducing the size relative to DLS, but should be treated with caution. The collapse of the dry polymer shell cannot explain the difference by 3-4 times

9. Do not measure particles that are close in size. The DLS can’t resolute particles with a difference < 3 times. For example, a 1:1:1 mixture of latex nanoparticles with diameters of 220,330 and 440nm would be detected as a single peak. You can't measure a real moon with a ruler

8. Remember about the contrast factor. In TEM electron absorption is proportional to the material's density and atomic number. For example, Iron oxide nanoparticles always have better contrast than polymer nanoparticles. Don’t measure dark figures against a dark background

7. Measure neutral solutions, add salts if necessary. Electrostatic interaction can affect the diffusion of particles, and therefore the size recorded by the device. If the lightbulb has charge 0, then its temperature will be low, but if it receives a charge, then not touch it!

6.Perform measurements in several dilutions. DLS can't measure the scattering of a single particle. The concentration factor can introduce errors due to both multiple light scattering and the conglomerates. It's easy to count several fish, but if they're hiding behind each other?

5.Remember about angular dependence factor. Various relaxation processes can be read by device measuring at 173° as particle diffusion and affect the measurement result. Goniometr gives you the advantage. Look at what you are measuring from different angles, there may be surprise

4. Use other equations if you are measuring non-spherical particles. DLS reduces any measurements to the shape of a sphere, so the higher the asymmetry of the particles, the greater the discrepancy with the real size. Different shapes must be measured with the appropriate tools

3. A clue that debris and large particles are affecting the result can be the count rate: it should be without jumps and oscillations, if this is not the case, then try filtering your sample again. You won't like seeing peaks on a seismograph

2. Filter the sample. Random large particles, dust and other inhomogeneities disrupt the correlation function, affecting the final result of your measurements. Just as sifting flour helps remove debris and make baked goods fluffier, filtering helps you get quality measurements

1. Unlike TEM, DLS doesn’t require special training, so often measurer doesn’t understand the physics of the method. This can be the first point in obtaining poor-quality results. Always remember that DLS doesn’t measure actual particle size, but its hydrodynamic radius/diameter!

If you work with #DLS and #TEM methods, I highly recommend our new paper on how to improve the quality of your results, it is open access! https://t.co/ISInGGJoLF I prepared a thread with mnemonic pictures to better remember the points of the article 🧵