116 research outputs found
Weyringer, Simon: An der Schwelle zum Land der VerheiĂung. Rhetorik und Pragmatik in Dtn 9,1â10,11
Electron tomography at 2.4 {\AA} resolution
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is a powerful imaging tool that has
found broad application in materials science, nanoscience and biology(1-3).
With the introduction of aberration-corrected electron lenses, both the spatial
resolution and image quality in TEM have been significantly improved(4,5) and
resolution below 0.5 {\AA} has been demonstrated(6). To reveal the 3D structure
of thin samples, electron tomography is the method of choice(7-11), with
resolutions of ~1 nm^3 currently achievable(10,11). Recently, discrete
tomography has been used to generate a 3D atomic reconstruction of a silver
nanoparticle 2-3 nm in diameter(12), but this statistical method assumes prior
knowledge of the particle's lattice structure and requires that the atoms fit
rigidly on that lattice. Here we report the experimental demonstration of a
general electron tomography method that achieves atomic scale resolution
without initial assumptions about the sample structure. By combining a novel
projection alignment and tomographic reconstruction method with scanning
transmission electron microscopy, we have determined the 3D structure of a ~10
nm gold nanoparticle at 2.4 {\AA} resolution. While we cannot definitively
locate all of the atoms inside the nanoparticle, individual atoms are observed
in some regions of the particle and several grains are identified at three
dimensions. The 3D surface morphology and internal lattice structure revealed
are consistent with a distorted icosahedral multiply-twinned particle. We
anticipate that this general method can be applied not only to determine the 3D
structure of nanomaterials at atomic scale resolution(13-15), but also to
improve the spatial resolution and image quality in other tomography
fields(7,9,16-20).Comment: 27 pages, 17 figure
High-Resolution Spectroscopy of Bonding in a Novel BeP2N4 Compound
The recently discovered compound BeP2N4 that crystallizes in the phenakite-type structure has potential application as a high strength optoelectronic material. Therefore, it is important to analyze experimentally the electronic structure, which was done in the present work by monochromated electron energy-loss spectroscopy. The detection of Be is challenging due to its low atomic number and easy removal under electron bombardment. We were able to determine the bonding behavior and coordination of the individual atomic species including Be. This is evident from a good agreement between experimental electron energy-loss near-edge structures of the Be-K-, P-L2,3-, and N-K-edges and density functional theory calculations
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