title: Three-dimensional coordinates of individual atoms in materials revealed by electron tomography.
abstract: Crystallography, the primary method for determining the 3D atomic positions in crystals, has been fundamental to the development of many fields of science. However, the atomic positions obtained from crystallography represent a global average of many unit cells in a crystal. Here, we report, for the first time, the determination of the 3D coordinates of thousands of individual atoms and a point defect in a material by electron tomography with a precision of ∼19 pm, where the crystallinity of the material is not assumed. From the coordinates of these individual atoms, we measure the atomic displacement field and the full strain tensor with a 3D resolution of ∼1 nm(3) and a precision of ∼10(-3), which are further verified by density functional theory calculations and molecular dynamics simulations. The ability to precisely localize the 3D coordinates of individual atoms in materials without assuming crystallinity is expected to find important applications in materials science, nanoscience, physics, chemistry and biology.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.|Department of Physics, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung 80424, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Chien-Chun
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: M C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.affiliation: Nanoscale Physics Research Laboratory, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Theis
authors.affiliation: National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ophus
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bartels
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Yongsoo
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325, USA.
authors.forename: Hadi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ramezani-Dakhel
authors.affiliation: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, UCLA-DOE Institute of Genomics and Proteomics, Los Angeles, California 90095-1570, USA.
authors.forename: Michael R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Sawaya
authors.affiliation: Department of Polymer Engineering, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 44325, USA.
authors.forename: Hendrik
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Heinz
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60201, USA.
authors.forename: Laurence D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Marks
authors.affiliation: National Center for Electron Microscopy, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ercius
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics &Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
authors.forename: Jianwei
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Miao
mesh_terms: D055032:Electron Microscope Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical