Abstract

Recent studies of single-atom catalysts open up the prospect of designing exceptionally active and environmentally efficient chemical processes. The stability and durability of such catalysts is governed by the strength with which the atoms are bound to their support and their diffusive behaviour. Here we use aberration-corrected STEM to image the diffusion of single copper adatoms on graphene oxide. We discover that individual atoms exhibit anomalous diffusion as a result of spatial and energetic disorder inherent in the support, and interpret the origins of this behaviour to develop a physical picture for the surface diffusion of single metal atoms.

Highlights

  • Recent studies of single-atom catalysts open up the prospect of designing exceptionally active and environmentally efficient chemical processes

  • We discover that individual atoms exhibit anomalous diffusion as a result of spatial and energetic disorder inherent in the support, and interpret the origins of this behaviour to develop a physical picture for the surface diffusion of single metal atoms

  • A system with spatial and energetic heterogeneity is known to result in deviations from the classical model of Brownian motion and can lead to a diverse range of behaviours known as anomalous diffusion [14]

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Summary

Introduction

Recent studies of single-atom catalysts open up the prospect of designing exceptionally active and environmentally efficient chemical processes. In this work we have overcome these limitations by using fast STEM imaging coupled with spatio-temporal denoising [21] and robust particle tracking [22] to study the motion of single copper atoms on graphene oxide (GO), using the electron beam to both excite and probe the dynamic behaviour.

Results
Conclusion
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