The Stanford Nanocharacterization Laboratory (SNL) and Recent Applications of an Aberration-Corrected Environmental Transmission Electron Microscope

Effect of Adventitious Carbon on Pit Formation of Monolayer MoS2

Forming pits on molybdenum disulfide (MoS₂ ) monolayers is desirable for (opto)electrical, catalytic, and biological applications. Thermal oxidation is a potentially scalable method to generate pits on monolayer MoS₂ , and pits are assumed to preferentially form around undercoordinated sites, such as sulfur vacancies. However, studies on thermal oxidation of MoS₂ monolayers have not considered the effect of adventitious carbon (C) that is ubiquitous and interacts with oxygen at elevated temperatures. Herein, the effect of adventitious C on the pit formation on MoS₂ monolayers during thermal oxidation is studied. The in situ environmental transmission electron microscopy measurements herein show that pit formation is preferentially initiated at the interface between adventitious C nanoparticles and MoS₂ , rather than only sulfur vacancies. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the C/MoS₂ interface favors the sequential adsorption of oxygen atoms with facile kinetics. These results illustrate the important role of adventitious C on pit formation on monolayer MoS₂ .

Assessing and ameliorating the influence of the electron beam on carbon nanotube oxidation in environmental transmission electron microscopy

In this work, we examine how the imaging electron beam can induce damage in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) at varying oxygen gas pressures and electron dose rates using environmental transmission electron microscopy (ETEM). Our studies show that there is a threshold cumulative electron dose which brings about damage in CNTs in oxygen - through removal of their graphitic walls - which is dependent on O₂ pressure, with a 4-5 fold decrease in total electron dose per decade increase at a lower pressure range (10^-6 to 10^-5mbar) and approximately 1.3 -fold decrease per decade increase at a higher pressure range (10^-3 to 10⁰mbar). However, at a given pressure, damage in CNTs was found to occur even at the lowest dose rate utilized, suggesting the absence of a lower limit for the latter parameter. This study provides guidelines on the cumulative dose required to damage nanotubes in the 10^-7mbar to 10⁰mbar pressure regimes, and discusses the role of electron dose rate and total electron dose on beam-induced CNT degradation experiments.

The dissipation of field emitting carbon nanotubes in an oxygen environment as revealed by in situ transmission electron microscopy

In this work, we report the first direct experimental observations of carbon nanotubes (CNT) field emitting in an oxygen environment, using aberration-corrected environmental transmission electron microscopy in combination with an electrical biasing specimen holder under low-dose, field-free imaging conditions. Our studies show that while the CNTs remain stable during high vacuum field emission, they experience abrupt decreases in length, also termed "burn-back", when field-emitting in an oxygen environment at around 30 Pa pressure. Furthermore, we perform correlative field-free and aberration-corrected, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy imaging to understand how the structure of the CNTs - particularly the opening of the nanotube caps - is influenced by its gas environment during field emission. This work provides significant insight into the mechanism of carbon nanotube behavior under non-ideal field emission conditions.

Oxidation of Carbon Nanotubes in an Ionizing Environment

In this work, we present systematic studies on how an illuminating electron beam which ionizes molecular gas species can influence the mechanism of carbon nanotube oxidation in an environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM). We found that preferential attack of the nanotube tips is much more prevalent than for oxidation in a molecular gas environment. We establish the cumulative electron doses required to damage carbon nanotubes from 80 keV electron beam irradiation in gas versus in high vacuum. Our results provide guidelines for the electron doses required to study carbon nanotubes within or without a gas environment, to determine or ameliorate the influence of the imaging electron beam. This work has important implications for in situ studies as well as for the oxidation of carbon nanotubes in an ionizing environment such as that occurring during field emission.