Researchers at the Zhejiang University and Japan’s National Institute of advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have used Hummingbird Scientific’s liquid cell TEM specimen holder to observe the shape transformation of individual palladium (Pd) nanocrystals from thermodynamically unfavored spherical shapes to truncated octahedrons in solution.  Using rigorous quantitative analysis, they find that the cause of shape transformation is triggered by about 10% of atomic displacement in Pd nanocrystals induced by beam irradiation and water environment.

Reference: Yingying Jiang, Xiao Li, Xiaoming Ma, Haifeng Wang, Hui Zhang, Zheng Liu, Ze Zhang and Chuanhong Jin. “Spherical to truncated octahedral shape transformation of palladium nanocrystals driven by e-beam in aqueous solution,” Nano Research (2019). DOI:10.1007/s12274-019-2498-1

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