Solving complex nanostructures with ptychographic atomic electron tomography

Pelz P, Griffin SM, Stonemeyer S, Popple D, DeVyldere H, Ercius P, Zettl A, Scott MC, Ophus C (2023)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2023

Journal

Nature Communications Nature Publishing Group: Nature Communications

Book Volume: 14

Article Number: 7906

Journal Issue: 1

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-43634-z

Abstract

Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is essential for determining atomic scale structures in structural biology and materials science. In structural biology, three-dimensional structures of proteins are routinely determined from thousands of identical particles using phase-contrast TEM. In materials science, three-dimensional atomic structures of complex nanomaterials have been determined using atomic electron tomography (AET). However, neither of these methods can determine the three-dimensional atomic structure of heterogeneous nanomaterials containing light elements. Here, we perform ptychographic electron tomography from 34.5 million diffraction patterns to reconstruct an atomic resolution tilt series of a double wall-carbon nanotube (DW-CNT) encapsulating a complex ZrTe sandwich structure. Class averaging the resulting tilt series images and subpixel localization of the atomic peaks reveals a Zr11Te50 structure containing a previously unobserved ZrTe2 phase in the core. The experimental realization of atomic resolution ptychographic electron tomography will allow for the structural determination of a wide range of beam-sensitive nanomaterials containing light elements.

Authors with CRIS profile

Philipp Pelz Professur für Werkstoffwissenschaften (Computational Materials Microscopy)

Involved external institutions

University of California, Berkeley US United States (USA) (US) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Pelz, P., Griffin, S.M., Stonemeyer, S., Popple, D., DeVyldere, H., Ercius, P.,... Ophus, C. (2023). Solving complex nanostructures with ptychographic atomic electron tomography. Nature Communications, 14(1). https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43634-z

MLA:

Pelz, Philipp, et al. "Solving complex nanostructures with ptychographic atomic electron tomography." Nature Communications 14.1 (2023).

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