Quantitative electron phase imaging with high sensitivity and an unlimited field of view

As it passes through a sample, an electron beam scatters, producing an exit wavefront rich in information. A range of material properties, from electric and magnetic field strengths to specimen thickness, strain maps and mean inner potentials, can be extrapolated from its phase and mapped at the nanoscale. Unfortunately, the phase signal is not straightforward to obtain. It is most commonly measured using off-axis electron holography, but this is experimentally challenging, places constraints on the sample and has a limited field of view. Here we report an alternative method that avoids these limitations and is easily implemented on an unmodified transmission electron microscope (TEM) operating in the familiar selected area diffraction mode. We use ptychography, an imaging technique popular amongst the X-ray microscopy community; recent advances in reconstruction algorithms now reveal its potential as a tool for highly sensitive, quantitative electron phase imaging.

Morphology – composition correlations in carbon nanotubes synthesised with nitrogen and phosphorus containing precursors

Co-doping carbon nanotubes with phosphorus and nitrogen produces two dominant, chemically distinct, morphologies. In situ electrical measurements are carried out to understand how the morphologies evolve when current is passed.

Subangstrom edge relaxations probed by electron microscopy in hexagonal boron nitride

Theoretical research on the two-dimensional crystal structure of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) has suggested that the physical properties of h-BN can be tailored for a wealth of applications by controlling the atomic structure of the membrane edges. Unexplored for h-BN, however, is the possibility that small additional edge-atom distortions could have electronic structure implications critically important to nanoengineering efforts. Here we demonstrate, using a combination of analytical scanning transmission electron microscopy and density functional theory, that covalent interlayer bonds form spontaneously at the edges of a h-BN bilayer, resulting in subangstrom distortions of the edge atomic structure. Orbital maps calculated in 3D around the closed edge reveal that the out-of-plane bonds retain a strong π(*) character. We show that this closed edge reconstruction, strikingly different from the equivalent case for graphene, helps the material recover its bulklike insulating behavior and thus largely negates the predicted metallic character of open edges.

Boron-mediated nanotube morphologies

The "doping" of carbon nanotubes with heteroatoms is an established method of controlling their properties. However, variations in heteroatom concentration in multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) tend to produce nanotubes with different morphologies, and hence varying properties, within the same sample. Electron energy loss spectroscopy in conjunction with imaging using a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) is a powerful tool to precisely map the spatial variation and bonding state of heteroatoms, e.g., B, N, P, Si, or combinations of these, present in carbon nanotubes exhibiting different structures. TEM analysis revealed that B incorporation during MWCNT growth (B-MWCNTs) results in nanotube morphologies that can be divided into three different types. These include core-shell structures possessing a B-rich core of cones and a C outer layer, B-containing cone structures, and MWCNTs with an irregular inner channel. In situ studies were carried out using Nanofactory() holder experiments in order to investigate the properties of individual B-MWCNTs and to show that the three types of nanotubes undergo different current-induced breakdown. The inhomogeneity in composition, structure, and properties of B-MWCNTs could result from the variation in chemical composition and temperature within the furnace, and this work highlights the importance of developing synthesis techniques that can control the inclusion of heteroatoms into nanotubes.

Synthesis and molecular structures of mononitrosyl (N2S2)M(NO) complexes (M = Fe, Co)

A series of tetragonally distorted square pyramids of formula N2S2M(NO) (M = Fe, Co) is prepared and characterized by nu(NO) IR and EPR spectroscopies, magnetism and electrochemical properties, as well as solid-state crystal structure determinations. While the nu(NO) IR frequencies and the angleM-N-O angles indicate differences in the electronic environment of NO consistent with the Enemark-Feltham notation of [Fe(NO)]7 and [Co(NO)]8, the reduction potentials, assigned to [Fe(NO)]7 + e- <==> [Fe(NO)]8 and [Co(NO)]8 + e- <==> [Co(NO)]9 respectively, are very similar, and in cases identical, for most members of the series. Coupled with the potential for the M(NO) units to breathe out of and into the N2S2 core plane are unique S-M-N-O torsional arrangements and concomitant pi-bonding interactions which may account for the unusual coherence of reduction potentials within the series.