Ab Initio Structure Determination of Cu2- xTe Plasmonic Nanocrystals by Precession-Assisted Electron Diffraction
Enrico Mugnaioli1, Mauro Gemmi1, Renyong Tu2,3
1Center for Nanotechnology Innovation@NEST , Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) , Piazza San Silvestro12 , 56127 Pisa , Italy.
Abstract:
We investigated pseudo-cubic Cu2- xTe nanosheets using electron diffraction tomography and high-resolution HAADF-STEM imaging. The structure of this metastable nanomaterial, which has a strong localized surface plasmon resonance in the near-infrared region, was determined ab initio by 3D electron diffraction data recorded in low-dose nanobeam precession mode, using a new generation background-free single-electron detector. The presence of two different, crystallographically defined modulations creates a 3D connected vacancy channel system, which may account for the strong plasmonic response of this material. Moreover, a pervasive rotational twinning is observed for nanosheets as thin as 40 nm, resulting in a tetragonal pseudo-symmetry.
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