in-situ TEM

The microelectronics revolution is one of the most influential drivers of current industrial developments. To probe the mechanical properties of ever shrinking materials and components, nanoindentation has come to be an omnipresent and indispensable method. In a recent combined experimental and computational approach, an international team of scientists was for the first time able to resolve the dynamic atomistic processes taking place at the elastic-plastic transition during nanoindentation.

ACS Nano, DOI: 10.1021/nn204476h

Nano Lett., DOI: 10.1021/nl201376j

Xiao Hua Liu and Jian Yu Huang, Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01918J

Dear colleagues,

we recently published a paper on measuring bulk properties of irradiated copper from nanoscale samples:

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat3055.html

Hope you find this interesting!

Daniel

PRL 106, 248302 (2011)     The atomic scale lithiation mechanism of individual SnO2 nanowires in a flooding geometry was revealed by in situ transmission electron microscopy. The lithiation was initiated by the formation of multiple stripes with a width of a few nanometers parallel to the (020) plane traversing the entire wires, serving as multiple reaction fronts for later stages of lithiation.

Nature Communications 1, Article number:144 | DOI:10.1038/ncomms1149

Although deformation processes in submicron-sized metallic crystals are
well documented, the direct observation of deformation mechanisms in
crystals with dimensions below the sub-10-nm range is currently lacking.
Here, through in situ high-resolution transmission electron
microscopy (HRTEM) observations, we show that (1) in sharp contrast to
what happens in bulk materials, in which plasticity is mediated by
dislocation emission from Frank-Read sources and multiplication, partial
dislocations emitted from free surfaces dominate the deformation of

Huang et al, Science 330, 1515-1520 (2010) (download pdf , or online version);Read a perspective written by Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, Science 330, 1485 (2010);

Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 106102 (2010) 

What does a dislocation look like in a spherical geometry, and how does it migrate in such a structure? We report here the counterintuitive motion of the 1/2⟨0001⟩ edge dislocation in carbon onions from the outer surface to the inner core, i.e. from a low pressure surface to a high pressure core, rather than from the core to the surface as expected due to a surface image force. Maybe you can help us to explain this peculiar phenomenon.

Nature Nanotechnology, Feb. 14, 2010. DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2010.4, Yang Lu, Jian Yu Huang, Chao Wang, Shouheng Sun and Jun Lou