Development of a specimen heating holder with an evaporator and gas injector and its application for catalyst

A specimen heating holder equipped with a gas injector and an evaporator has been developed for use with conventional transmission electron microscopes (TEMs). The developed specimen holder allows both synthesis of metal oxide support and deposition of catalyst nano-particles in situ. Since the holder is designed to be used in small gapped high-resolution objective lens pole-piece, all the procedure from the synthesis of support material to the deposition of catalyst as well as the behavior of the catalyst nano-particles on the support can be observed at near atomic resolution. The developed specimen holder was applied to the study of AuPd catalyst. First, air was injected onto heated aluminum particles via a gas injector to synthesize Al(2)O(3) support. Then, nano-particles of AuPd were deposited on the Al(2)O(3) support. After the deposition, the synthesized Al(2)O(3) support was heated and air was injected again to observe behaviors of the deposited AuPd nano-particles at elevated temperatures in the aerial environment. Behaviors of the AuPd nano-particles such as coalescence, segmentation and diffusion to the Al(2)O(3) support were dynamically observed at atomic level high resolution.