Structural determination of nanoparticulate catalysts during the synthesis of carbon nanomaterials using aberration-corrected environmental transmission electron microscopy

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

We obtained new atomic-scale insights into the growth mechanism of carbon nanotubes from nanoparticle catalysts in chemical vapor deposition. Using environmental transmission electron microscopy, we observed that small deformations of nanoparticle catalysts at the interface with carbon nanotubes result in bends and disorder of the interlayer spacing of growing carbon nanotubes. Changes in the diameter and number of graphitic layers in growing carbon nanotubes are caused by large protrusions and shrink deformations of nanoparticle catalysts. Furthermore, we succeeded in determining the structure of fluctuating nanoparticle catalysts during carbon nanotube growth by comparing image simulations with the time-dependent environmental transmission electron microscope images.