Prospects for sub-nanometer scale imaging of optical phenomena using electron microscopy

Zhang, Ze; Rayabharam, Archith; Martis, Joel; Li, Hao-Kun; Aluru, Narayana R.; Majumdar, Arun

doi:10.1063/5.0029979

Prospects for sub-nanometer scale imaging of optical phenomena using electron microscopy

Journal Article · Sun Jan 17 23:00:00 EST 2021 · Applied Physics Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0029979· OSTI ID:1782091

^[1]; ^[2]; ^[1]; Li, Hao-Kun ^[1]; ^[3]; ^[4]

Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Dep. of Mechanical Science and Engineering
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Dep. of Mechanical Science and Engineering; Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States). Beckman Inst. for Advanced Science and Technology
Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States). Dept. of Photon Science; Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Precourt Institute for Energy

Imaging of optical phenomena at the sub-nanometer scale can offer fundamental insights into the electronic or vibrational states in atomic-scale defects, molecules, and nanoparticles, which are important in quantum information, heterogeneous catalysis, optoelectronics, and structural biology. Several techniques have surpassed the traditional Abbe diffraction limit and attained spatial resolutions down to a few nanometers, but sub-nanometer scale optics has remained elusive. Here, we propose an approach that combines spectrally specific photoabsorption with sub-nanometer scale resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of photoexcited electrons. We first estimate the signal level and conditions required for imaging nanoscale optical phenomena in core-shell quantum dots (QDs) like CdS/CdTe. Furthermore, we show the possibility of imaging photoexcited states of atomic-scale defects in a monolayer hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) using ab initio and high resolution (HR)TEM simulations. The ability to directly visualize photoexcited states at the sub-nanometer scale opens opportunities to study properties of individual quantum dots and atomic defects.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515; SC0019112

OSTI ID:: 1782091

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1761252

Journal Information:: Applied Physics Letters, Journal Name: Applied Physics Letters Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 118; ISSN 0003-6951

Publisher:: American Institute of Physics (AIP)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (42)

A Review of Surface Plasmon Resonance-Enhanced Photocatalysis Hou, Wenbo; Cronin, Stephen B. Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 13, p. 1612-1619 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201202148	journal	October 2012
Quantum Dots Solar Cells: Core/Shell Quantum Dots Solar Cells (Adv. Funct. Mater. 13/2020) Selopal, Gurpreet Singh; Zhao, Haiguang; Wang, Zhiming M. Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202070086	journal	March 2020
Atomic Defects in Two-Dimensional Materials: From Single-Atom Spectroscopy to Functionalities in Opto-/Electronics, Nanomagnetism, and Catalysis Hong, Jinhua; Jin, Chuanhong; Yuan, Jun Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201606434	journal	March 2017
Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy in the Electron Microscope Egerton, R. F. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9583-4	book	January 2011
Advanced Computing in Electron Microscopy Kirkland, Earl J. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4406-4	book	January 1998
Transmission Electron Microscopy: Diffraction, Imaging, and Spectrometry Carter, C. Barry; Williams, David B. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26651-0	book	January 2016
Beam damage to organic material is considerably reduced in cryo-electron microscopy Knapek, E.; Dubochet, J. Journal of Molecular Biology, Vol. 141, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-2836(80)90382-4	journal	August 1980
Nanoscale chemical analysis by tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy Stöckle, Raoul M.; Suh, Yung Doug; Deckert, Volker Chemical Physics Letters, Vol. 318, Issue 1-3, p. 131-136 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0009-2614(99)01451-7	journal	February 2000
Radiation damage in the TEM and SEM Egerton, R. F.; Li, P.; Malac, M. Micron, Vol. 35, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.micron.2004.02.003	journal	August 2004
Cryo-EM: A Unique Tool for the Visualization of Macromolecular Complexity Nogales, Eva; Scheres, Sjors H. W. Molecular Cell, Vol. 58, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2015.02.019	journal	May 2015
Charge transfer and separation in photoexcited quantum dot-based systems Vokhmintcev, Kirill V.; Samokhvalov, Pavel S.; Nabiev, Igor Nano Today, Vol. 11, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nantod.2016.04.005	journal	April 2016
Control of radiation damage in the TEM Egerton, R. F. Ultramicroscopy, Vol. 127 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2012.07.006	journal	April 2013
Operation of TEAM I in a User Environment at NCEM Ercius, Peter; Boese, Markus; Duden, Thomas Microscopy and Microanalysis, Vol. 18, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1017/S1431927612001225	journal	July 2012
Imaging of Optically Active Defects with Nanometer Resolution Feng, Jiandong; Deschout, Hendrik; Caneva, Sabina Nano Letters, Vol. 18, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04819	journal	February 2018
Luminescence Studies of Individual Quantum Dot Photocatalysts Amirav, Lilac; Alivisatos, A. Paul Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 135, Issue 35 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja404918z	journal	August 2013
Selective Sputtering and Atomic Resolution Imaging of Atomically Thin Boron Nitride Membranes Meyer, Jannik C.; Chuvilin, Andrey; Algara-Siller, Gerardo Nano Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl9011497	journal	July 2009
Vibrational spectroscopy in the electron microscope Krivanek, Ondrej L.; Lovejoy, Tracy C.; Dellby, Niklas Nature, Vol. 514, Issue 7521 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13870	journal	October 2014
Deciphering chemical order/disorder and material properties at the single-atom level Yang, Yongsoo; Chen, Chien-Chun; Scott, M. C. Nature, Vol. 542, Issue 7639 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21042	journal	February 2017
Mapping vibrational surface and bulk modes in a single nanocube Lagos, Maureen J.; Trügler, Andreas; Hohenester, Ulrich Nature, Vol. 543, Issue 7646 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21699	journal	March 2017
Damage-free vibrational spectroscopy of biological materials in the electron microscope Rez, Peter; Aoki, Toshihiro; March, Katia Nature Communications, Vol. 7, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10945	journal	March 2016
Experimental analysis of charge redistribution due to chemical bonding by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy Meyer, Jannik C.; Kurasch, Simon; Park, Hye Jin Nature Materials, Vol. 10, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2941	journal	January 2011
Going deeper than microscopy: the optical imaging frontier in biology Ntziachristos, Vasilis Nature Methods, Vol. 7, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1483	journal	July 2010
Fluorescence microscopy Lichtman, Jeff W.; Conchello, José-Angel Nature Methods, Vol. 2, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth817	journal	November 2005
Quantum emission from hexagonal boron nitride monolayers Tran, Toan Trong; Bray, Kerem; Ford, Michael J. Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.242	journal	October 2015
Solid-state single-photon emitters Aharonovich, Igor; Englund, Dirk; Toth, Milos Nature Photonics, Vol. 10, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2016.186	journal	September 2016
Revealing multiple classes of stable quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride with correlated optical and electron microscopy Hayee, Fariah; Yu, Leo; Zhang, Jingyuan Linda Nature Materials, Vol. 19, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-0616-9	journal	February 2020
Vibrational spectroscopy at atomic resolution with electron impact scattering Venkatraman, Kartik; Levin, Barnaby D. A.; March, Katia Nature Physics, Vol. 15, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0675-5	journal	October 2019
Position and momentum mapping of vibrations in graphene nanostructures Senga, Ryosuke; Suenaga, Kazu; Barone, Paolo Nature, Vol. 573, Issue 7773 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1477-8	journal	August 2019
Quantum confined colloidal nanorod heterostructures for solar-to-fuel conversion Wu, Kaifeng; Lian, Tianquan Chemical Society Reviews, Vol. 45, Issue 14 https://doi.org/10.1039/C5CS00472A	journal	January 2016
Apertureless near‐field optical microscope Zenhausern, F.; O’Boyle, M. P.; Wickramasinghe, H. K. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 65, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.112931	journal	September 1994
High resolution photothermal imaging of high frequency phenomena using a visible charge coupled device camera associated with a multichannel lock-in scheme Grauby, S.; Forget, B. C.; Holé, S. Review of Scientific Instruments, Vol. 70, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1149966	journal	September 1999
Super‐resolution fluorescence near‐field scanning optical microscopy Harootunian, A.; Betzig, E.; Isaacson, M. Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 49, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.97565	journal	September 1986
Electron knock-on damage in hexagonal boron nitride monolayers Kotakoski, J.; Jin, C. H.; Lehtinen, O. Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.113404	journal	September 2010
Chromatic Aberration Correction for Atomic Resolution TEM Imaging from 20 to 80 kV Linck, Martin; Hartel, Peter; Uhlemann, Stephan Physical Review Letters, Vol. 117, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.076101	journal	August 2016
Fingerprinting quantum emitters in hexagonal boron nitride using strain Dev, Pratibha Physical Review Research, Vol. 2, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.022050	journal	June 2020
Imaging Intracellular Fluorescent Proteins at Nanometer Resolution Betzig, E.; Patterson, G. H.; Sougrat, R. Science, Vol. 313, Issue 5793 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1127344	journal	September 2006
Scanning Interferometric Apertureless Microscopy: Optical Imaging at 10 Angstrom Resolution Zenhausern, F.; Martin, Y.; Wickramasinghe, H. K. Science, Vol. 269, Issue 5227 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.269.5227.1083	journal	August 1995
Computer averaging of electron micrographs of 40S ribosomal subunits Frank, J.; Verschoor, A.; Boublik, M. Science, Vol. 214, Issue 4527 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7313694	journal	December 1981
Identification of site-specific isotopic labels by vibrational spectroscopy in the electron microscope Hachtel, Jordan A.; Huang, Jingsong; Popovs, Ilja Science, Vol. 363, Issue 6426 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav5845	journal	January 2019
Single-atom vibrational spectroscopy in the scanning transmission electron microscope Hage, F. S.; Radtke, G.; Kepaptsoglou, D. M. Science, Vol. 367, Issue 6482 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba1136	journal	March 2020
Excited-State Imaging of Single Particles on the Subnanometer Scale Wallum, Alison; Nguyen, Huy A.; Gruebele, Martin Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 71, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-physchem-071119-040108	journal	April 2020
Super-resolution microscopy at a glance Galbraith, C. G.; Galbraith, J. A. Journal of Cell Science, Vol. 124, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.080085	journal	May 2011

Similar Records

Photoabsorption Imaging at Nanometer Scales Using Secondary Electron Analysis

Journal Article · Thu Feb 25 23:00:00 EST 2021 · Nano Letters · OSTI ID:1782083

Carrier dynamics and activation energy of CdTe quantum dots in a Cd{sub x}Zn{sub 1-x}Te quantum well

Journal Article · Sun Dec 04 23:00:00 EST 2011 · Applied Physics Letters · OSTI ID:22027832

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS

Prospects for sub-nanometer scale imaging of optical phenomena using electron microscopy

Citation Formats

References (42)

Similar Records

Related Subjects