Principal Investigator James LeBeau
Project Start Date September 2020
For nanoscale particles it is critical to know their size, structure, shape, and composition. Nanometrology, however, currently falls short of this goal. Counting atoms in clusters and particles with STEM was severely limited by a calibration of image intensities that depends on the microscope operating conditions, i.e. the illumination intensity and contrast/brightness settings. We are interested in developing methods to remove the specific microscope conditions from the equation to enable measurement of universal calibration curves. Combined with EELS and EDS, the composition of particles can be analyzed, supplying the information necessary to determine the type of and number of atoms within each particle. Through application of these techniques, our interest is understand the structure of catalytic particles and explore how the 3D distribution of elements affects observed conversion efficiency. Now that quantitative imaging has been achieved, the LeBeau group is interested in applying and developing these techniques to extract more information from STEM images than ever before.