Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

This seminar addresses advances in electron microscopy that were accomplished over the past years by stabilizing microscope columns and by the incorporation of new electron-optical components such as aberration correctors, monochromators and high brightness guns. Many of these developments were pursued within the DoE’s TEAM project that was recently concluded [1]. As a result a new generation of electron microscopes is now available that has reached 50 pm of resolution, which is limited by the Coulomb scattering process itself and not longer by instrument performance. The extraordinary performance of these microscopes has sparked a debate about how to harvest the gained instrumental abilities for the benefit of science. There are many aspects that can be considered in this discussion and one outstanding feature is that the resolution improvement has helped boosting the signal to noise ratio for the detection of single atoms across the Periodic Table of Elements (Z > 2). Consequently it became possible to image single atoms routinely even if they are light (Z < 10) and to identify the atomic structure of single point defects. Even the three-dimensional location of self-interstitial atoms in crystals can be revealed. New research areas such as the quest for more sustainable energy solutions largely benefit from this development since catalytic materials and polymers can be imaged time resolved at atomic resolution with single atom sensitivity. In essence we start seeing atoms at work within the ultimate limit that is given by radiation damage.