Electron Nanocrystallography

Abstract

What is nanocrystallography? Just as modern crystallography has evolved from the early study of the structure of single crystals to individual molecules, liquids, quasicrystals and other complex structures, nanocrystallography is defined broadly to include the study of atomic and molecular arrangements in structural forms of the feature lengthfrom a few to hundreds nanometers. Because electrons interact strongly with matter and electrons form the very probes, electron diffraction has the potential to provide quantitative structure data for individual nanostructures in a role similar to x-ray and neutron diffraction for bulk crystals. This potential is currently being developed for reasons that electron diffraction patterns can be recorded selectively from individual nanostructure at the size as small as a nanometer using electron probe forming lenses and apertures, while electron imaging provides the selectivity.