Development of Diaphragm for Environmental Cell Transmission Electron Microscope by Pulse Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Recently, it was reported that gold particles of less than 10 nm in diameter exhibit unique catalytic properties. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) is useful for analyzing structures at the atomic level, but as specimens are conventionally placed under a strong vacuum, it is difficult to examine directly the relationship between the observed structures and catalytic behavior, which requires instead observation of the catalyst under reaction gas conditions.The environmental-cell (E-cell) TEM system includes a specimen holder with a small chamber to isolate the vacuum around the TEM from the reaction gas atmosphere around the specimen by means of a diaphragm. The present study turns attention to the use of amorphous boron nitride and silicon nitride films in the diaphragm of the E-cell TEM. The films were prepared using pulse plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The films which were high hardness, amorphous and transparent at 200 kV electron were successfully developed.