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The Structure of Sub‐nm Platinum Clusters at Elevated Temperatures
Author(s) -
Henninen Trond R.,
Bon Marta,
Wang Feng,
Passerone Daniele,
Erni Rolf
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201911068
Subject(s) - nucleation , scanning transmission electron microscopy , materials science , amorphous solid , chemical physics , crystal structure , crystallography , cubic crystal system , transmission electron microscopy , platinum , high resolution transmission electron microscopy , molecular physics , catalysis , nanotechnology , chemistry , physics , thermodynamics , biochemistry
Little is known about metallic clusters consisting merely of a dozen of atoms or even less, despite of their importance in catalysis and crystal nucleation. Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) provides direct atomic structure information but has inherently suffered from limited time resolution. We employ fast dynamic STEM combined with a spatio‐temporal image denoising algorithm to explore the structure and stability of Pt clusters on carbon, which represents a highly relevant catalysis system. At room temperature, dynamic amorphous 2D structures are found, while above ≈300 °C, the clusters transform into a crystalline state. Our experimental and theoretical data reveal an unexpected strong trend of the crystalline clusters to exhibit the face‐centered cubic, bulk structure of Pt with cuboidal geometries being most prominent.