Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Aso, Ryotaro
• Ogawa, Yohei
• Tamaoka, Takehiro
• Yoshida, Hideto
• Takeda, Seiji

Titel

Visualizing Progressive Atomic Change in the Metal Surface Structure Made by Ultrafast Electronic Interactions in an Ambient Environment

Ist Teil von

• Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2019-11, Vol.58 (45), p.16028-16032

Auflage

International ed. in English

Ort / Verlag

Germany: Wiley Subscription Services, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2019

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Understanding the atomic and molecular phenomena occurring in working catalysts and nanodevices requires the elucidation of atomic migration originating from electronic excitations. The progressive atomic dynamics on metal surface under controlled electronic stimulus in real time, space, and gas environments are visualized for the first time. By in situ environmental transmission electron microscopy, the gas molecules introduced into the biased metal nanogap could be activated by electron tunneling and caused the unpredicted atomic dynamics. The typically inactive gold was oxidized locally on the positive tip and field‐evaporated to the negative tip, resulting in the atomic reconstruction on the negative tip surface. This finding of a tunneling‐electron‐attached‐gas process will bring new insights into the design of nanostructures such as nanoparticle catalysts and quantum nanodots and will stimulate syntheses of novel nanomaterials not seen in the ambient environment. Atomic and molecular dynamics on a metal surface need to be elucidated in real time, real space, and real environments. This study is the first visualization of the progressive atomic change on the gold surface induced by oxygen molecules activated by ultrafast electron tunneling in the nanogap.