An operando electrochemical stage for the transmission electron microscope has been configured to form a "Li battery" that is used to quantify the electrochemical processes that occur at the anode during charge/discharge cycling. Of particular importance for these observations is the identification of an image contrast reversal that originates from solid Li being less dense than the surrounding liquid electrolyte and electrode surface. This contrast allows Li to be identified from Li-containing compounds that make up the solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer. By correlating images showing the sequence of Li electrodeposition and the evolution of the SEI layer with simultaneously acquired and calibrated cyclic voltammograms, electrodeposition, and electrolyte breakdown processes can be quantified directly on the nanoscale. This approach opens up intriguing new possibilities to rapidly visualize and test the electrochemical performance of a wide range of electrode/electrolyte combinations for next generation battery systems.

The mechanism that drives the regular beating of individual cilia and flagella, as well as dense ciliary fields, remains unclear. We describe a minimal model system, composed of microtubules and molecular motors, which self-assemble into active bundles exhibiting beating patterns reminiscent of those found in eukaryotic cilia and flagella. These observations suggest that hundreds of molecular motors, acting within an elastic microtubule bundle, spontaneously synchronize their activity to generate large-scale oscillations. Furthermore, we also demonstrate that densely packed, actively bending bundles spontaneously synchronize their beating patterns to produce collective behavior similar to metachronal waves observed in ciliary fields. The simple in vitro system described here could provide insights into beating of isolated eukaryotic cilia and flagella, as well as their synchronization in dense ciliary fields.

Any macroscopic deformation of a filamentous bundle is necessarily accompanied by local sliding and/or stretching of the constituent filaments1,2. Yet the nature of the sliding friction between two aligned filaments interacting through multiple contacts remains largely unexplored. Here, by directly measuring the sliding forces between two bundled F-actin filaments, we show that these frictional forces are unexpectedly large, scale logarithmically with sliding velocity as in solid-like friction, and exhibit complex dependence on the filaments’ overlap length. We also show that a reduction of the frictional force by orders of magnitude, associated with a transition from solid-like friction to Stokes’s drag, can be induced by coating F-actin with polymeric brushes. Furthermore, we observe similar transitions in filamentous microtubules and bacterial flagella. Our findings demonstrate how altering a filament’s elasticity, structure and interactions can be used to engineer interfilament friction and thus tune the properties of fibrous composite materials.

Optimization of colloidal nanoparticle synthesis techniques requires an understanding of underlying particle growth mechanisms. Non-classical growth mechanisms are particularly important as they affect nanoparticle size and shape distributions which in turn influence functional properties. For example, preferential attachment of nanoparticles is known to lead to the formation of mesocrystals, although the formation mechanism is currently not well understood. Here we employ in situ liquid cell scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and steered molecular dynamics (SMD) simulations to demonstrate that the experimentally observed preference for end-to-end attachment of silver nanorods is a result of weaker solvation forces occurring at rod ends. SMD reveals that when the side of a nanorod approaches another rod, perturbation in the surface bound water at the nanorod surface creates significant energy barriers to attachment. Additionally, rod morphology (i.e. facet shape) effects can explain the majority of the side attachment effects that are observed experimentally.

Polymer adsorption is a fundamental problem in statistical mechanics that has direct relevance to diverse disciplines ranging from biological lubrication to stability of colloidal suspensions. We combine experiments with computer simulations to investigate depletion induced adsorption of semi-flexible polymers onto a hard-wall. Three dimensional filament configurations of partially adsorbed F-actin polymers are visualized with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. This information is used to determine the location of the adsorption/desorption transition and extract the statistics of trains, tails and loops of partially adsorbed filament configurations. In contrast to long flexible filaments which primarily desorb by the formation of loops, the desorption of stiff, finite-sized filaments is largely driven by fluctuating filament tails. Simulations quantitatively reproduce our experimental data and allow us to extract universal laws that explain scaling of the adsorption-desorption transition with relevant microscopic parameters. Our results demonstrate how the adhesion strength, filament stiffness, length, as well as the configurational space accessible to the desorbed filament can be used to design the characteristics of filament adsorption and thus engineer properties of composite biopolymeric materials.

Anionic dicyanocuprate(I) ions in nano and bulky crystals have been investigated. The doped nanosystems show unusual photophysical properties such as multiple emission bands, thermochromism, and optical memory. In contrast, NaCu(CN) 2 and KCu(CN) 2 have different polymeric structures and exhibit only a single emission peak. This was confirmed by infrared, Raman, and reflectance spectroscopy results. The emission peaks of these doped systems show tunability over a wide wavelength interval, indicating the existence of different {[Cu(CN) 2 ]} n nanoclusters. The thermochromism and optical memory phenomena are due to the population changes of these different-sized nanoclusters. Ab initio DFT calculations for the impurity copper(I) ion in different alkali halides show that the {[Cu(CN) 2 ]} n nanoclusters are examples of excimers and exciplexes. Atomistic modeling describes how the distribution of different nanoclusters varies with the alkali halide hosts.

In situ transmission electron microscopy enables the imaging of biological cells, macromolecular protein complexes, nanoparticles, and other systems in a near-native environment. In order to improve interpretation of image contrast features and also predict ideal imaging conditions ahead of time, new virtual electron microscopic techniques are needed. A technique for virtual fluid-stage high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy with the multislice method is presented that enables the virtual imaging of model fluid-stage systems composed of millions of atoms. The virtual technique is exemplified by simulating images of PbS nanoparticles under different imaging conditions and the results agree with previous experimental findings. General insight is obtained on the influence of the effects of fluid path length, membrane thickness, nanoparticle position, defocus and other microscope parameters on attainable image quality.

Luminescent nanoclusters of linear dicyanoargentate(I) ions doped in different alkali halide single crystals (NaF, NaCl, NaBr, and KCl) have been investigated. Site-selective excitation of the different nanoclusters results in the appearance of emission bands which are assigned to different luminescent {[Ag(CN)2]−} n nanoclusters in the host lattices. The nanoclusters of [Ag(CN)2]− in the alkali halides display energy tunability over a wide wavelength interval. The ab initio DFT calculations show that for nanoclusters, the first excited state has a deeper potential and shorter internuclear separation than the nanocluster ground state, indicative of excimer/exciplex behavior. Molecular modeling indicates how the distribution of nanoclusters varies with the host lattice. This emission energy tunability makes these systems attractive candidates for potential applications, such as tunable solid state lasers, photocatalysts, and photosensitizers for water splitting.