Modelling the Radiolysis of Silver Nitrate Solutions in presence of Bromide Ions in Liquid-Phase Transmission Electron Microscopy

Taherkhani M, Fritsch B, Jank MPM, Spiecker E, Hutzler A (2021)

Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2021

Journal

Original Authors: Mehran Taherkhani, Birk Fritsch, Michael P. M. Jank, Erdmann Spiecker, Andreas Hutzler

Book Volume: 27

Pages Range: 103-104

Issue: S2

DOI: 10.1017/S1431927621013519

Abstract

In  this  study,  we  model  the  radiolysis  chemistry  of  aerated  AgNO3  solutions  during  liquid-phase
transmission electron microscopy (LP-TEM) in presence of bromide ions using a Python-based adaption
of the radiolysis model of Schneider et al. [1]. We verify the model qualitatively by comparing the results
with experiments using a graphene-supported microwell liquid cell [2,3]. LP-TEM is a powerful, yet novel
method  for  analyzing  dynamic  processes  of  nanostructures  in  liquid  environment.  One  of  the  major
challenges  for  enabling  LP-TEM  to  become  a  standard  characterization  method,  however,  is  the
development of accurate physical models describing electron-beam interactions with liquid specimen, e.g.
heating [4], radiolysis [1,2,5,6], and charging effects [7]. In particular, the model of Schneider et al. [1]
describing  radiolysis  of  deionized  and  deaerated  water  under  electron  beam  irradiation  has  been  used
intensively to explain a vast variety of LP-TEM-specific phenomena.
 
Recently,  complex  particle  growth  and  dissolution  studies  investigating  gold-silver  heterostructures
obtained high interest in  research  [2,8].  In order to support the  proposed interpretation of  experimental
results,  we elaborate an adaption of Schneider’s radiolysis script to describe the reaction chemistry of
aerated  AgNO3  solutions  in  presence  of  bromide  ions,  which  originate  from  stabilizing  agents  like
cetrimonium bromide (CTAB). Besides water, this requires 36 additional species and yields a reaction set
comprising  232  coupled  ordinary  differential  equations.  The  original  Matlab©-based  script  is  ported  to
open source software (Python) as a first step towards an easily accessible simulation program. We find
excellent agreement in both performance and outcome of our script with the initial version. A validation
of  our  model  is  achieved  by  comparison  with  LP-TEM  experiments  on  silver-shell  growth  on  gold
nanorods using an in-house developed liquid-cell architecture [2,3] in combination with a Philips CM-30
(S)TEM operated at 300 kV and electron flux densities between 104 and 105 e-nm-2s-1

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

Fraunhofer-Institut für Integrierte Systeme und Bauelementetechnologie (IISB) Germany (DE)

How to cite

APA:

Taherkhani, M., Fritsch, B., Jank, M.P.M., Spiecker, E., & Hutzler, A. (2021). Modelling the Radiolysis of Silver Nitrate Solutions in presence of Bromide Ions in Liquid-Phase Transmission Electron Microscopy. Microscopy and Microanalysis, 27, 103-104. https://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1431927621013519

MLA:

Taherkhani, Mehran, et al. "Modelling the Radiolysis of Silver Nitrate Solutions in presence of Bromide Ions in Liquid-Phase Transmission Electron Microscopy." Microscopy and Microanalysis 27 (2021): 103-104.

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