Nanoparticles are an increasingly important class of materials with wide-ranging applications in catalysis, coatings, pigments, cosmetics, electronics, food and medical industries.

The physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles are highly sensitive to particle morphology, including particle size.

These materials may only be synthesised in small quantities and are difficult to produce. Therefore it is often desirable to make particle size measurements from only a few milligrams of material and to be able to recover the sample after measurement for further testing.