Talk abstract:

Transmission electron microscopy has revolutionized the way we observe materials at the atomic scale. The incorporation of aberration-correctors in TEM opens up the opportunity to directly image the atomic structure of carbon based materials at low accelerating voltages, such as 80 kV. In this talk I will present our recent work on imaging sp2 carbon nanomaterials, fullerenes, nanotubes and graphene. I will show how we can obtained the full C-C bonding structure with sub-Angtrom spatial resolution. This allows the determination of carbon nanotube chirality and the observation of defects and impurities. Even at this low accelerating voltage, carbon nanomaterials can still undergo structural transformation. I will demonstrate how the electron beam can be used to modify the structure of carbon nanotubes containing fullerenes (i.e peapods) and graphene.