On the interpretation of the forbidden spots observed in the electron diffraction patterns of flat Au triangular nanoparticles

J Reyes-Gasga; A Gómez-Rodríguez; Xiaoxia Gao; M José-Yacamán

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2008.03.005

On the interpretation of the forbidden spots observed in the electron diffraction patterns of flat Au triangular nanoparticles

Ultramicroscopy. 2008 Aug;108(9):929-36. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2008.03.005. Epub 2008 Apr 3.

Authors

J Reyes-Gasga¹, A Gómez-Rodríguez, Xiaoxia Gao, M José-Yacamán

Affiliation

¹ Departamento de Materia Condensada, Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coyoacán 04510, Apartado Postal 20-364, 01000 México, D.F., México. jreyes@fisica.unam.mx

PMID: 18501517
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2008.03.005

Abstract

In many cases nanostructures present forbidden spots in their electron diffraction patterns when they are observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). To interpret their TEM and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images properly, an understanding of the origin of these spots is necessary. In this work we comment on the origin of the forbidden spots observed in the [111] and [112] electron diffraction patterns of flat gold triangular nanoparticles. The forbidden spots were successfully indexed as corresponding to the first laue Zone (FOLZ) and the HRTEM images presented a contrast produced by the interference of the zero-order Laue zone (ZOLZ) and FOLZ spots. We discuss the use of the forbidden spots in the study of the structure of nanoparticles and show that they are related to the shape and incompleteness of layers in the very thin particles.