Abstract
Strain analysis from high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images offers a convenient tool for measuring strain in materials at the atomic scale. In this paper we present a theoretical study of the precision and accuracy of surface strain measurements directly from aberration-corrected HRTEM images. We examine the influence of defocus, crystal tilt and noise, and find that absolute errors of at least 1–2% strain should be expected. The model structures include surface relaxations determined using molecular dynamics, and we show that this is important for correctly evaluating the errors introduced by image aberrations.
Highlights
The surface lattice strain in nanostructures as a topic of research has gained increased interest in recent years due to its significant impact on many material properties
We evaluate the accuracy of strain analysis directly from simulations of aberration-corrected High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images focusing on surfaces of nanoparticles
It has been proposed that expansive surface strains in small decahedral gold nanoparticles are a contributor to their catalytic activity [22]
Summary
The surface lattice strain in nanostructures as a topic of research has gained increased interest in recent years due to its significant impact on many material properties. Platinumbased oxygen reduction catalysis is improved by weakening the binding of adsorbed oxygen intermediates by 0.1 eV, this can be achieved by a 2% compressive strain [2]. Strain in nanoparticles can be generated by a variety of sources: particle size, shape, twinning, by the lattice mismatch between metals in multimetallic core–shell nanoparticles or it can be induced by the supporting substrate [3]. Characterizing the influence of these effects requires a technique capable of measuring structural information at atomic resolution. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) has become a routine tool for determining the structure of materials at an atomic scale [4]. TEM is attractive due to the ability to map local strain
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