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Grain rotation and lattice deformation during photoinduced chemical reactions revealed by in situ X-ray nanodiffraction

Nature Materials volume 14, pages 691–695 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

In situ X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) have been used to investigate many physical science phenomena, ranging from phase transitions, chemical reactions and crystal growth to grain boundary dynamics1,2,3,4,5,6. A major limitation of in situ XRD and TEM is a compromise that has to be made between spatial and temporal resolution1,2,3,4,5,6. Here, we report the development of in situ X-ray nanodiffraction to measure high-resolution diffraction patterns from single grains with up to 5 ms temporal resolution. We observed, for the first time, grain rotation and lattice deformation in chemical reactions induced by X-ray photons: Br− + hv → Br + e− and e− + Ag+ → Ag0. The grain rotation and lattice deformation associated with the chemical reactions were quantified to be as fast as 3.25 rad s−1 and as large as 0.5 Å, respectively. The ability to measure high-resolution diffraction patterns from individual grains with a temporal resolution of several milliseconds is expected to find broad applications in materials science, physics, chemistry and nanoscience.

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Figure 1: Schematic layout of in situ X-ray nanodiffraction with up to 5 ms temporal resolution.
Figure 2: Real-time observation of grain rotation in chemical reactions induced by X-ray photons.
Figure 3: Real-time observation of simultaneous grain rotation and lattice deformation in chemical reactions induced by X-ray photons.

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Acknowledgements

We thank I. Vartaniants for stimulating discussions and A. Zozulya for help with the experiments. This work was supported by the DARPA PULSE program through a grant from AMRDEC and Helmholtz Society grants VH-VI-403 and DFG SFB755. This work was also partially funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the US Department of Energy (Grant No. DE-FG02-13ER46943), ONR MURI (Grant No. N00014-14-1-0675) and NSF (Grant No. DMR-1437263).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Zhifeng Huang & Thomas N. Blanton

    Present address: Present addresses: Carl ZEISS X-ray Microscopy Inc., Pleasanton, California 94588, USA (Z.H.); International Centre for Diffraction Data, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073, USA (T.N.B.).,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics & Astronomy and California NanoSystems Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA

    Zhifeng Huang, Rui Xu & Jianwei Miao

  2. Institut für Röntgenphysik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1 37077 Göttingen, Germany,

    Matthias Bartels, Markus Osterhoff, Sebastian Kalbfleisch & Tim Salditt

  3. DESY, Notkestr. 85 22607 Hamburg, Germany,

    Michael Sprung

  4. Department of Precision Science and Technology, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan

    Akihiro Suzuki & Yukio Takahashi

  5. Kodak Technology Center, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, New York 14650-2106, USA

    Thomas N. Blanton

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  1. Zhifeng Huang
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Contributions

J.M. directed the project; Z.H., M.B., R.X., T.S., J.M., M.O., S.K., M.S., A.S., Y.T. and T.N.B. conducted the experiments; Z.H., J.M., M.B., T.N.B., T.S. and M.S. performed the data analysis; J.M., Z.H., T.S. and T.N.B. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jianwei Miao.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Huang, Z., Bartels, M., Xu, R. et al. Grain rotation and lattice deformation during photoinduced chemical reactions revealed by in situ X-ray nanodiffraction. Nature Mater 14, 691–695 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4311

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