"Microscopy in Motion: Understanding how crystals grow through electron microscopy movies"
We can watch crystals grow and change in an electron microscope by adding atoms one at a time onto a clean surface in vacuum, or by driving them into place using an electrochemical stimulus applied in a liquid medium. The movies tell us a lot about the physical phenomena that are involved during growth, but are also entertaining, frustrating, or both at the same time. I would like to share the joy of this type of “in situ” microscopy as we aim to understand how atoms assemble into nanoscale crystals and use the information to control the formation of more complicated nanostructures whose properties may make them useful for new types of electronic devices, batteries or catalysts.
