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Peña Corredor A, Viart N, Lefevre C. inserexs: reflection choice software for resonant elastic X-ray scattering. J Appl Crystallogr 2023; 56:854-859. [PMID: 37284260 PMCID: PMC10241054 DOI: 10.1107/s1600576723002212] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2022] [Accepted: 03/07/2023] [Indexed: 06/08/2023] Open
Abstract
This paper presents inserexs, an open-source computer program that aims to pre-evaluate the different reflections for resonant elastic X-ray scattering (REXS) diffraction experiments. REXS is an extremely versatile technique that can provide positional and occupational information about the atoms present in a crystal. inserexs was conceived to help REXS experimentalists know beforehand which reflections to choose to determine a parameter of interest. Prior work has already proven this to be useful in the determination of atomic positions in oxide thin films. inserexs allows generalization to any given system and aims to popularize resonant diffraction as an alternative technique to improve the resolution of crystalline structures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Antonio Peña Corredor
- Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPCMS, UMR 7504, 23 rue du Loess, Strasbourg 67200, France
| | - Nathalie Viart
- Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPCMS, UMR 7504, 23 rue du Loess, Strasbourg 67200, France
| | - Christophe Lefevre
- Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, IPCMS, UMR 7504, 23 rue du Loess, Strasbourg 67200, France
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Peña Corredor A, Wendling L, Preziosi D, Schlur L, Leuvrey C, Thiaudière D, Elklaim E, Blanc N, Grenier S, Roulland F, Viart N, Lefevre C. Oxygen crystallographic positions in thin films by non-destructive resonant elastic X-ray scattering. J Appl Crystallogr 2022. [DOI: 10.1107/s1600576722003673] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
Precisely locating oxygen atoms in nanosized systems is a real challenge. The traditional strategies used for bulk samples fail at probing samples with much less matter. Resonant elastic X-ray scattering (REXS) experiments in the X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) domain have already proved their efficiency in probing transition metal cations in thin films, but it is not feasible to perform such experiments at the low-energy edges of lighter atoms – such as oxygen. In this study, the adequacy of using REXS in the extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) domain, also known as extended diffraction absorption fine structure (EDAFS), to solve this issue is shown. The technique has been validated on a bulk FeV2O4 sample, through comparison with results obtained with conventional X-ray diffraction measurements. Subsequently, the positions of oxygen atoms in a thin film were unveiled by using the same strategy. The approach described in this study can henceforth be applied to solve the crystallographic structure of oxides, and will help in better understanding the properties and functionalities which are dictated by the positions of the oxygen atoms in functional nanosized materials.
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Gemmi M, Mugnaioli E, Gorelik TE, Kolb U, Palatinus L, Boullay P, Hovmöller S, Abrahams JP. 3D Electron Diffraction: The Nanocrystallography Revolution. ACS CENTRAL SCIENCE 2019; 5:1315-1329. [PMID: 31482114 PMCID: PMC6716134 DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.9b00394] [Citation(s) in RCA: 203] [Impact Index Per Article: 40.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/17/2019] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
Crystallography of nanocrystalline materials has witnessed a true revolution in the past 10 years, thanks to the introduction of protocols for 3D acquisition and analysis of electron diffraction data. This method provides single-crystal data of structure solution and refinement quality, allowing the atomic structure determination of those materials that remained hitherto unknown because of their limited crystallinity. Several experimental protocols exist, which share the common idea of sampling a sequence of diffraction patterns while the crystal is tilted around a noncrystallographic axis, namely, the goniometer axis of the transmission electron microscope sample stage. This Outlook reviews most important 3D electron diffraction applications for different kinds of samples and problematics, related with both materials and life sciences. Structure refinement including dynamical scattering is also briefly discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mauro Gemmi
- Center
for Nanotechnology Innovation@NEST, Istituto
Italiano di Tecnologia, Piazza S. Silvestro 12, 56127 Pisa, Italy
| | - Enrico Mugnaioli
- Center
for Nanotechnology Innovation@NEST, Istituto
Italiano di Tecnologia, Piazza S. Silvestro 12, 56127 Pisa, Italy
| | - Tatiana E. Gorelik
- University
of Ulm, Central Facility for Electron Microscopy, Electron Microscopy
Group of Materials Science (EMMS), Albert Einstein Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany
| | - Ute Kolb
- Institut
für Anorganische Chemie und Analytische Chemie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Duesbergweg 10-14, 55128 Mainz, Germany
- Institut
für Angewandte Geowissenschaften, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Schnittspahnstraße 9, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany
| | - Lukas Palatinus
- Department
of Structure Analysis, Institute of Physics
of the CAS, Na Slovance 2, 182 21 Prague 8, Czechia
| | - Philippe Boullay
- CRISMAT,
Normandie Université, ENSICAEN, UNICAEN, CNRS UMR 6508, 6 Bd Maréchal Juin, F-14050 Cedex Caen, France
| | - Sven Hovmöller
- Inorganic
and Structural Chemistry, Department of Materials and Environmental
Chemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
| | - Jan Pieter Abrahams
- Center
for Cellular Imaging and NanoAnalytics (C−CINA), Biozentrum, Basel University, Mattenstrasse 26, CH-4058 Basel, Switzerland
- Department
of Biology and Chemistry, Paul Scherrer
Institut (PSI), CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland
- Leiden
Institute of Biology, Leiden University, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE Leiden, The Netherlands
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Steciuk G, David A, Petříček V, Palatinus L, Mercey B, Prellier W, Pautrat A, Boullay P. Precession electron diffraction tomography on twinned crystals: application to CaTiO 3 thin films. J Appl Crystallogr 2019. [DOI: 10.1107/s1600576719005569] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 04/03/2023] Open
Abstract
Strain engineering via epitaxial thin-film synthesis is an efficient way to modify the crystal structure of a material in order to induce new features or improve existing properties. One of the challenges in this approach is to quantify structural changes occurring in these films. While X-ray diffraction is the most widely used technique for obtaining accurate structural information from bulk materials, severe limitations appear in the case of epitaxial thin films. This past decade, precession electron diffraction tomography has emerged as a relevant technique for the structural characterization of nano-sized materials. While its usefulness has already been demonstrated for solving the unknown structure of materials deposited in the form of thin films, the frequent existence of orientation variants within the film introduces a severe bias in the structure refinement, even when using the dynamical diffraction theory to calculate diffracted intensities. This is illustrated here using CaTiO3 films deposited on SrTiO3 substrates as a case study. By taking into account twinning in the structural analysis, it is shown that the structure of the CaTiO3 films can be refined with an accuracy comparable to that obtained by dynamical refinement from non-twinned data. The introduction of the possibility to handle twin data sets is undoubtedly a valuable add-on and, notably, paves the way for a successful use of precession electron diffraction tomography for accurate structural analyses of thin films.
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He H, An F, Teng H, Huang Q, Song H. Preparation and characterisation of a novel agar oligosaccharide-iron (III) complex. Int J Food Sci Technol 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/ijfs.13921] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Hong He
- College of Food Science; Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University; Fuzhou 350002 China
| | - Fengping An
- College of Food Science; Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University; Fuzhou 350002 China
| | - Hui Teng
- College of Food Science; Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University; Fuzhou 350002 China
| | - Qun Huang
- College of Food Science; Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University; Fuzhou 350002 China
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quality Science and Processing Technology in Special Starch; Fuzhou 350002 China
| | - Hongbo Song
- College of Food Science; Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University; Fuzhou 350002 China
- Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Quality Science and Processing Technology in Special Starch; Fuzhou 350002 China
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Zhang HT, Brahlek M, Ji X, Lei S, Lapano J, Freeland JW, Gopalan V, Engel-Herbert R. High-Quality LaVO 3 Films as Solar Energy Conversion Material. ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES 2017; 9:12556-12562. [PMID: 28323409 DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b16007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
Mott insulating oxides and their heterostructures have recently been identified as potential photovoltaic materials with favorable absorption properties and an intrinsic built-in electric field that can efficiently separate excited electron-hole pairs. At the same time, they are predicted to overcome the Shockley-Queisser limit due to strong electron-electron interaction present. Despite these premises a high concentration of defects commonly observed in Mott insulating films acting as recombination centers can derogate the photovoltaic conversion efficiency. With use of the self-regulated growth kinetics in hybrid molecular beam epitaxy, this obstacle can be overcome. High-quality, stoichiometric LaVO3 films were grown with defect densities of in-gap states up to 2 orders of magnitude lower compared to the films in the literature, and a factor of 3 lower than LaVO3 bulk single crystals. Photoconductivity measurements revealed a significant photoresponsivity increase as high as tenfold of stoichiometric LaVO3 films compared to their nonstoichiometric counterparts. This work marks a critical step toward the realization of high-performance Mott insulator solar cells beyond conventional semiconductors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hai-Tian Zhang
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - Matthew Brahlek
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - Xiaoyu Ji
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - Shiming Lei
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - Jason Lapano
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - John W Freeland
- Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory , Lemont, Illinois 60439, United States
| | - Venkatraman Gopalan
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
| | - Roman Engel-Herbert
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Materials Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University , University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, United States
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