Phys.org  June 17, 2024 Due to their versatile tunable properties MXene flakes are used as electrodes in lithium-ion batteries and diverse applications, from energy storage to electromagnetic shielding. However, the local distribution of surface functional groups over single flakes and within few- or multilayered flakes remains unclear. An international team of researchers (Germany, France) introduced scanning X-ray microscopy (SXM) with simultaneous transmission and electron yield detection of individual MXene flakes enabling multimodal nanoscale chemical imaging with bulk and surface sensitivity, respectively. The Ti chemical bonding environment is found to significantly vary between few-layered and multilayered MXenes. Simultaneous bulk and surface […]