Radial distribution function imaging by STEM diffraction: Phase mapping and analysis of heterogeneous nanostructured glasses

Xiaoke Mu; Di Wang; Tao Feng; Christian Kübel

doi:10.1016/j.ultramic.2016.05.009

Radial distribution function imaging by STEM diffraction: Phase mapping and analysis of heterogeneous nanostructured glasses

Ultramicroscopy. 2016 Sep:168:1-6. doi: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2016.05.009. Epub 2016 May 24.

Authors

Xiaoke Mu¹, Di Wang², Tao Feng³, Christian Kübel⁴

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Nanotechnology (INT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany; Helmholtz-Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 89081 Ulm, Germany. Electronic address: muxiaoke@gmail.com.
² Institute of Nanotechnology (INT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany; Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMF), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.
³ Herbert Gleiter Institute of Nanoscience, Nanjing University of Science and Technology (NJUST), 210094 Nanjing, China.
⁴ Institute of Nanotechnology (INT), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany; Helmholtz-Institute Ulm for Electrochemical Energy Storage (HIU), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 89081 Ulm, Germany; Karlsruhe Nano Micro Facility (KNMF), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany.

PMID: 27236215
DOI: 10.1016/j.ultramic.2016.05.009

Abstract

Characterizing heterogeneous nanostructured amorphous materials is a challenging topic, because of difficulty to solve disordered atomic arrangement in nanometer scale. We developed a new transmission electron microscopy (TEM) method to enable phase analysis and mapping of heterogeneous amorphous structures. That is to combine scanning TEM (STEM) diffraction mapping, radial distribution function (RDF) analysis, and hyperspectral analysis. This method was applied to an amorphous zirconium oxide and zirconium iron multilayer system, and showed extreme sensitivity to small atomic packing variations. This approach helps to understand local structure variations in glassy composite materials and provides new insights to correlate structure and properties of glasses.

Keywords: Amorphous materials; Nanoglasses; RDF image; Radial distribution function; STEM diffraction mapping.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't