Atom probe tomography—A cornerstone in materials characterization

Abstract

Abstract

Probing the Location and Speciation of Elements in Zeolites with Correlated Atom Probe Tomography and Scanning Transmission X‐Ray Microscopy

“…Two characterization techniques that provide high spatial resolution information are Atom Probe Tomography (APT) and Scanning Transmission X‐ray Microscopy (STXM) . APT is a single atom 3‐D microscopy that is able to reconstruct the 3‐D position and chemical identity of all atoms with sub‐nanometer resolution from a needle shaped specimen with dimensions of tens to hundreds of nanometers, making it the highest resolution technique to provide 3‐D elemental identification ,,. STXM relies on a zone plate to focus soft X‐rays emitted by a synchrotron onto a small spot on the sample, through which the sample is scanned, and by measuring the total transmitted intensity of the beam as a function of energy it can give information about local chemical environment and abundance.…”

“…[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] APT is a single atom 3-D microscopy that is able to reconstruct the 3-D position and chemical identity of all atoms with sub-nanometer resolution from a needle shaped specimen with dimensions of tens to hundreds of nanometers, making it the highest resolution technique to provide 3-D elemental identification. [10,11,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] STXM relies on a zone plate to focus soft X-rays emitted by a synchrotron onto a small spot on the sample, through which the sample is scanned, and by measuring the total transmitted intensity of the beam as a function of energy it can give information about local chemical environment and abundance. STXM (especially in combination with ptychography) is one of the highest resolution techniques capable of providing this information (possible resolution < 50 50 nm 2 pixel size, and even in the range of 10 nm and below when using ptychography [22,23] ) that is also non-destructive to zeolites as it uses soft X-rays.…”

Interpreting Atom Probe Data from Oxide–Metal Interfaces

“…A deeper understanding of these interfaces requires information of both high chemical and high spatial resolution, ideally on the atomic scale. Atom probe tomography (APT) is capable of providing chemical resolution up to 10 ppm (Gault et al, 2012), depending on the material under analysis, and three-dimensional (3D) spatial resolution reaching accuracy levels of within a few Ångstroms (Amouyal & Schmitz, 2016). The high resolving power of APT makes it an ideal microscopy tool for the analysis of interfaces.…”

Physical Metallurgy Inspired Nano‐Features for Enhancement of Thermoelectric Conversion Efficiency

“…DFT calculations of both bulk and interfacial energies indicate formation of equilibrium elongated Sb 2 Te 3 lamella having high degree of coherency with the AST matrix via formation of an intermediate, metastable Sb 8 Te 3 phase; this is explained by extremely low interfacial free energies of the Sb 2 Te 3 /AgSbTe 2 and Sb 8 Te 3 /AgSbTe 2 interfaces, which are γ = 208 and 175 mJ m −2 , respectively. Thorough characterization of the microstructure obtained during phase transformation in AST, applying electron microscopy and APT, explains how it correlates with the measured TE transport coefficients, and indicates the special atomistic nature of these interfaces . It is found that only rapid solidification techniques such as melt spinning enable production of a single‐AST phase with no internal phases …”