Direct Subangstrom Measurement of Surfaces of Oxide Particles

R. Yu, L. H. Hu, Z. Y. Cheng, Y. D. Li, H. Q. Ye, and J. Zhu

Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 226101 – Published 23 November 2010

Abstract

Using aberration-corrected transmission electron microscopy combined with first-principles calculations, we show that the surface structure of ${Co}_{3} O_{4}$ , a typical complex oxide, can be directly imaged and quantitatively analyzed at the subangstrom scale. The atomic positions of both light oxygen and heavier cobalt within the surface layers have been measured to an accuracy of several picometers. The surface electronic structure analysis suggests a polarity compensation model based on the electronic polarizability of surface ions.

Received 27 August 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.226101

Authors & Affiliations

R. Yu^1,2,3,*, L. H. Hu⁴, Z. Y. Cheng¹, Y. D. Li^3,4, H. Q. Ye⁵, and J. Zhu^1,2,3

¹Beijing National Center for Electron Microscopy, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
²Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
³State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
⁴Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
⁵Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

^*ryu@tsinghua.edu.cn

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Vol. 105, Iss. 22 — 26 November 2010

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