• DOI:10.1038/ncomms5155
• Corpus ID: 7555989

Picometre-precision analysis of scanning transmission electron microscopy images of platinum nanocatalysts.

@article{Yankovich2014PicometreprecisionAO,
  title={Picometre-precision analysis of scanning transmission electron microscopy images of platinum nanocatalysts.},
  author={Andrew B. Yankovich and Benjamin Berkels and Wolfgang Dahmen and Peter Binev and Sergio I. Sanchez and Steven A. Bradley and Ao Li and Izabela Szlufarska and Paul M. Voyles},
  journal={Nature communications},
  year={2014},
  volume={5},
  pages={
          4155
        }
}

• A. Yankovich, B. Berkels, +6 authors P. Voyles
• Published 11 June 2014
• Physics
• Nature communications

Measuring picometre-scale shifts in the positions of individual atoms in materials provides new insight into the structure of surfaces, defects and interfaces that influence a broad variety of materials' behaviour. Here we demonstrate sub-picometre precision measurements of atom positions in aberration-corrected Z-contrast scanning transmission electron microscopy images based on the non-rigid registration and averaging of an image series. Non-rigid registration achieves five to seven times better precision than previous methods. Non-rigidly registered images of a silica-supported platinum nanocatalyst show pm-scale contraction of atoms at a (111)/(111) corner towards the particle centre and expansion of a flat (111) facet. Sub-picometre precision and standardless atom counting with <1 atom uncertainty in the same scanning transmission electron microscopy image provide new insight into the three-dimensional atomic structure of catalyst nanoparticle surfaces, which contain the active sites controlling catalytic reactions.