Imaging the Structure of an Individual C60 Fullerene Molecule and its Deformation Process Using HRTEM with Atomic Sensitivity

Abstract

Individual molecular imaging with near atomic resolution has been achieved by using a spherical aberration corrected transmission electron microscope (Cs-corrected TEM). Since the spatial resolution was pushed down to 0.14 nm, enabling resolution of the typical carbon−carbon distance, we can directly assign the local configurations of hexagons and pentagons just perpendicular to the electron beam for individual fullerene molecules and identify the orientation for each C60 molecule. The individual molecular events of fullerenes under the electron microscopic observations, such as symmetry degradation or conformation change, are demonstrated on the single-molecular basis as a consequence of the carbon atom loss. A transformation of the C60 molecule (Ih) to C58 (C1), corresponding to the loss of two carbon atoms, was experimentally proposed for the first time.