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Nanoporous gold and silver exhibit strong, omnidirectional broad-band absorption in the far-field. Even though they consist entirely of gold or silver atoms, these materials appear black and dull, in great contrast with the familiar luster of continuous gold and silver. The nature of these anomalous optical characteristics is revealed here by combining nanoscale electron energy loss spectroscopy with discrete dipole and boundary element simulations. It is established that the strong broad-band absorption finds its origin in nanoscale splitting of light, with great local variations in the absorbed color. This nanoscale polychromaticity results from the excitation of localized surface plasmon resonances, which are imaged and analyzed here with deep sub-wavelength, nanometer spatial resolution. We demonstrate that, with this insight, it is possible to customize the absorbance and reflectance wavelength bands of thin nanoporous films by only tuning their morphology.

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The scattering factor for electrons is sensitive to differences in atomic bonding at low values of sin 0/2. These differences will influence the amplitudes and phases of low-order beams of electrons diffracted from crystals with large unit cells. The experimental intensities of these beams, and contrast in the corresponding lattice images, can be used to derive upper limits for the charges on constituent ions, provided the associated n-beam dynamical calculations are carried out with sufficient precision. It is shown that, in W4Nb26077, the atoms can be only partially ionized, and the bonding must have some covalent character.

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Limitations on the calculation of high-resolution detail in electron microscope images of defects in crystals are discussed and it is shown how images of crystals with arbitrary strain can be calculated by means of a reinterpretation of the normal dynamical equations. An alternative approach, which in some cases is preferable for numerical calculations, is the method of periodic continuation. These methods, and various approximations to them, are applied to the study of highresolution images of edge dislocations. It is shown that at the 5 ]k level of resolution, the column approximation is adequate for calculating the important features of weak-beam images of an edge dislocation with an extended core. However, when applied to the calculation of lattice fringes near a core, it may lead to serious error. Calculations are presented which show that, because of spherical aberration, care is required in the interpretation of lattice-fringe images near a dislocation core even for thin crystals.