Fast Atomic-Scale Chemical Imaging of Crystalline Materials and Dynamic Phase Transformations
Chemical imaging at the atomic-scale provides a useful real-space approach to chemically investigate solid crystal structures, and has been recently demonstrated in aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). Atomic-scale chemical imaging by STEM using energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) offers easy data interpretation with a one-to-one correspondence between image and structure but has a severe shortcoming due to the poor efficiency of X-ray generation and collection. As a result, it requires a long acquisition time of typical > few 100 seconds, limiting its potential applications. Here we describe the development of an atomic-scale STEM EDS chemical imaging technique that cuts the acquisition time to one or a few seconds, efficiently reducing the acquisition time by more than 100 times. This method was demonstrated using LaAlO 3 (LAO) as a model crystal. Applying this method to the study of phase transformation induced by electron-beam radiation in a layered lithium transition-metal (TM) oxide, i.e., Li[Li 0.2 Ni 0.2 Mn 0.6 ]O 2 (LNMO), a cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries, we obtained a time-series of the atomic-scale chemical imaging, showing the transformation progressing by preferably jumping of Ni atoms from the TM layers into the Li-layers. The new capability offers an opportunity for temporal, atomic-scale chemical mapping of crystal structures for the investigation of materials susceptible to electron irradiation as well as phase transformation and dynamics at the atomic-scale.