Estimation for the Si-O Structures Based on the Homology Concept

Abstract

The first atomically resolved transmission electron microscopic (TEM) pictures of silica gels showed visible differences between their molecular densities (MD), which might be the molecular foundation of their distinctly different macroscopic properties, like porosity, surface area, fragility, etc. [1, 2]. Thus, learning to control MD promises the first time to add rational chemical design to the largely empirical synthesis methods of silica gels with desirable physical properties. However there is no known method for the quantitative comparison of molecular densities of these amorphous materials. We report in this paper a new numerical image-analyzing method, utilizing the mathematical theory of homology [3], which allows to measure quantitatively the molecular density of silica gels from their high resolution TEM pictures.