HRTEM of 1DSnTe@SWNT nanocomposite located on thin layers of graphite

The method for imaging of highly sensitive nanostructures unstable under electron beam irradiation is introduced. To reduce charge and thermally generated beam damage, highly conductive multilayered graphene or thin graphite layers were used as supports for nanostructures. Well-defined crystalline structure of graphite layers enables image reconstruction by Fourier filtering and allows maintaining high quality of images. The approach was tested for imaging of highly sensitive quasi one-dimensional SnTe nanocrystals hosted inside single-walled carbon nanotubes. Relying on the filtered images and the image simulation, the structure of one-dimensional SnTe was established as a chain of fcc NaCl type unit cells, connected by the [001] edges with <110> direction coinciding with nanotube axis.