Transmission electron microscopy of nanomaterials

Abstract

Transmission electron microscope (TEM) has emerged as a very powerful tool for probing the structure of metals and alloys because of its capability to provide morphological information, crystallographic details, and chemical composition of phases distributed on a very fine scale in a given microstructure. Convergent beam electron diffraction, nano or micro beam diffraction and selected area diffraction techniques have been used to obtain crystallographic information whereas structural information is obtained by high-resolution electron microscopy (HREM). With its multifaceted capabilities such as nano-beam diffraction, composition analysis and imaging abilities at angstrom level, TEM has emerged as an instrument for complete characterization of nano scale microstructure of materials. The use of TEM in the study of various types of nanomaterials is described in this paper.