Direct visualisation, by aberration-corrected electron microscopy, of the crystallisation of bimetallic nanoparticle catalysts.
Using a scanning transmission electron microscope, corrected for aberration, ultra-high resolution images of the internal structure of nanoparticle clusters, as well as the number of atoms present per cluster, may be directly determined: it is shown that individual bimetallic clusters of Ru10Pt2 have a "molecular" structure and that when they coalesce into larger entities containing ca. 200 atoms they adopt the regular crystalline, and facetted, state of a bulk metal.
Ward
Edmund P W
EP
Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, University of Cambridge, UK. epww2@cam.ac.uk
Arslan
Ilke
I
Midgley
Paul A
PA
Bleloch
Andrew
A
Thomas
John Meurig
JM