Synthesis and characterization of smooth ultrananocrystalline diamond films via low pressure bias-enhanced nucleation and growth

This letter describes the fundamental process underlying the synthesis of ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) films, using a new low-pressure, heat-assisted bias-enhanced nucleation (BEN)/bias enhanced growth (BEG) technique, involving H2/CH4 gas chemistry. This growth process yields UNCD films similar to those produced by the Ar-rich/CH4 chemistries, with pure diamond nanograins (3–5 nm), but smoother surfaces (~6 nm rms) and higher growth rate (~1 µm/h). Synchrotron-based x-Ray absorption spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy studies on the BEN-BEG UNCD films provided information critical to understanding the nucleation and growth mechanisms, and growth condition-nanostructure-property relationships

EMSL and Institute for Integrated Catalysis (IIC) Catalysis Workshop

Within the context of significantly accelerating scientific progress in research areas that address important societal problems, a workshop was held in November 2010 at EMSL to identify specific and topically important areas of research and capability needs in catalysis-related science

Dynamic Processes in Biology, Chemistry, and Materials Science: Opportunities for UltraFast Transmission Electron Microscopy - Workshop Summary Report

This report summarizes a 2011 workshop that addressed the potential role of rapid, time-resolved electron microscopy measurements in accelerating the solution of important scientific and technical problems. A series of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and National Academy of Science workshops have highlighted the critical role advanced research tools play in addressing scientific challenges relevant to biology, sustainable energy, and technologies that will fuel economic development without degrading our environment. Among the specific capability needs for advancing science and technology are tools that extract more detailed information in realistic environments (in situ or operando) at extreme conditions (pressure and temperature) and as a function of time (dynamic and time-dependent). One of the DOE workshops, Future Science Needs and Opportunities for Electron Scattering: Next Generation Instrumentation and Beyond, specifically addressed the importance of electron-based characterization methods for a wide range of energy-relevant Grand Scientific Challenges. Boosted by the electron optical advancement in the last decade, a diversity of in situ capabilities already is available in many laboratories. The obvious remaining major capability gap in electron microscopy is in the ability to make these direct in situ observations over a broad spectrum of fast (µs) to ultrafast (picosecond [ps] and faster) temporal regimes. In an effort to address current capability gaps, EMSL, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, organized an Ultrafast Electron Microscopy Workshop, held June 14-15, 2011, with the primary goal to identify the scientific needs that could be met by creating a facility capable of a strongly improved time resolution with integrated in situ capabilities. The workshop brought together more than 40 leading scientists involved in applying and/or advancing electron microscopy to address important scientific problems of relevance to DOE’s research mission. This workshop built on previous workshops and included three breakout sessions identifying scientific challenges in biology, biogeochemistry, catalysis, and materials science frontier areas of fundamental science that underpin energy and environmental science that would significantly benefit from ultrafast transmission electron microscopy (UTEM). In addition, the current status of time-resolved electron microscopy was examined, and the technologies that will enable future advances in spatio-temporal resolution were identified in a fourth breakout session

Current status and future directions for in situ transmission electron microscopy

This review article discusses the current and future possibilities for the application of in situ transmission electron microscopy to reveal synthesis pathways and functional mechanisms in complex and nanoscale materials. The findings of a group of scientists, representing academia, government labs and private sector entities (predominantly commercial vendors) during a workshop, held at the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology-National Institute of Science and Technology (CNST-NIST), are discussed. We provide a comprehensive review of the scientific needs and future instrument and technique developments required to meet them. Published by Elsevier B.V

Towards an integrated materials characterization toolbox

The material characterization toolbox has recently experienced a number of parallel revolutionary advances, foreshadowing a time in the near future when material scientists can quantify material structure evolution across spatial and temporal space simultaneously. This will provide insight to reaction dynamics in four-dimensions, spanning multiple orders of magnitude in both temporal and spatial space. This study presents the authors’ viewpoint on the material characterization field, reviewing its recent past, evaluating its present capabilities, and proposing directions for its future development. Electron microscopy; atom probe tomography; x-ray, neutron and electron tomography; serial sectioning tomography; and diffraction-based analysis methods are reviewed, and opportunities for their future development are highlighted. Advances in surface probe microscopy have been reviewed recently and, therefore, are not included [D.A. Bonnell et al.: Rev. Modern Phys. in Review]. In this study particular attention is paid to studies that have pioneered the synergetic use of multiple techniques to provide complementary views of a single structure or process; several of these studies represent the state-of-the-art in characterization and suggest a trajectory for the continued development of the field. Based on this review, a set of grand challenges for characterization science is identified, including suggestions for instrumentation advances, scientific problems in microstructure analysis, and complex structure evolution problems involving material damage. The future of microstructural characterization is proposed to be one not only where individual techniques are pushed to their limits, but where the community devises strategies of technique synergy to address complex multiscale problems in materials science and engineering.United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Basic Energy Sciences (Council of Materials Science and Engineering)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant DMR-0855402

EMSL and Institute for Integrated Catalysis (IIC) Catalysis Workshop

Within the context of significantly accelerating scientific progress in research areas that address important societal problems, a workshop was held in November 2010 at EMSL to identify specific and topically important areas of research and capability needs in catalysis-related science