The first image of the structure of an Au20 cluster has been captured by researchers in the UK. The team says that the cluster has a tetrahedral pyramid structure.
This particular structural arrangement had been proposed after gas-phase experiments and theoretical calculations, but this is the first time that real-space atomic resolution images using scanning transmission electron microscopy have proved its existence on a solid surface.
This is important because confirming the atomic structure is fundamental for understanding nanoparticle structures and for the cluster’s applications in, for example, heterogeneous catalysis.
Read the ‘HOT’ Nanoscale article today:
Direct atomic imaging and dynamical fluctuations of the tetrahedral Au20 cluster
Z W Wang and R E Palmer
Nanoscale, 2012, DOI: 10.1039/c2nr31071f
