Dynamic Observation of an Atom-Sized Gold Wire by Phase Electron Microscopy

Abstract

A single-atom-sized gold wire was successfully observed in real time by a newly developed defocus-image modulation processing electron microscope. Because of phase retrieval processing with spherical aberration correction, the single-atom strand wire was observed with high contrast and without contrast blurring. By carefully looking at the atomic distance, the contrast, and the dynamic behavior of the wire, we recognized that there are two stages of the wire. In the first stage the wire maintained the atomic distance in the bulk crystal, but in the second stage the wire showed the atomic distance of the nearest-neighbor atoms with weaker contrast. The gold wire was rather stable for a few seconds under strong electron beam illumination.

Probing the Orbital Origin of Conductance Oscillations in Atomic Chains

“…Such chains are observed in break junction experiments when pulling apart metallic wires of Au, Pt or Ir [26][27][28][29][30] . Relativistic effects taking place in these metals strengthen the interatomic bonds between the low-coordinated atoms in the atomic constriction 28,31 .…”

Measurements of the atomistic mechanics of single crystalline silicon wires of nanometer width

“…24,25 It was demonstrated that in situ transmission electron microscopy ͑TEM͒ had an atomistic spatial resolution for deformation of nanocontacts of metals and isolators. [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] In particular, the stress-strain relation for nanometer-sized structures was directly observed by in situ TEM combined with sub-nanoNewton force measurement systems. 33,34,37 Synthesis and electrical properties of silicon ͑Si͒ contacts and wires have been extensively studied on nanometer scales.…”

Theoretical study of linear monoatomic nanowires, dimer and bulk of Cu, Ag, Au, Ni, Pd and Pt

“…Metal nanowires have recently attracted a great deal of attention due to their unusual properties and relative simplicity of fabrication. Most studied systems both experimentally [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] and theoretically [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] are free standing gold nanowires, which exhibit a quantized conductance at stretching and have peculiar structural properties. Unsupported and supported wires of Cu, Pd, Pt, Ag and Au have also been studied theoretically by means of ab initio and molecular dynamics methods [14], [17][18][19][20][21][22].…”