Intrinsically ductile metals are prone to catastrophic failure when exposed to certain liquid metals, but the atomic-level mechanism for this effect is not fully understood. We characterized a model system, a nickel sample infused with bismuth atoms, by using aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy and observed a bilayer interfacial phase that is the underlying cause of embrittlement. This finding provides a new perspective for understanding the atomic-scale embrittlement mechanism and for developing strategies to control the practically important liquid metal embrittlement and the more general grain boundary embrittlement phenomena in alloys. This study further demonstrates that adsorption can induce a coupled grain boundary structural and chemical phase transition that causes drastic changes in properties.

Oxidation of alloy often involves chemical partition and injection of vacancies. Chemical partition is the consequence of selective oxidation, while injection of vacancies is associated with the differences of diffusivity of cations and anions. It is far from clear as how the injected vacancies behave during oxidation of metal. Using in-situ transmission electron microscopy, we captured unprecedented details on the collective behavior of injected vacancies during oxidation of metal, featuring an initial multi-site oxide nucleation, vacancy supersaturation, nucleation of a single cavity, sinking of vacancies into the cavity and accelerated oxidation of the particle. High sensitive energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy mapping reveals that Cr is preferentially oxidized even at the initial oxidation, leading to a structure that Cr oxide is sandwiched near the inner wall of the hollow particle. The work provides a general guidance on tailoring of nanostructured materials involving multi-ion exchange such as core-shell structured composite nanoparticles.

Spectromicroscopy of tissue surrounding failed CoCr metal-on-metal hip replacements detected corroded nanoscale debris in periprosthetic tissue in two chemical states, with concomitant mitochondrial damage. The majority of debris contained Cr(3+), with trace amounts of oxidised cobalt. A minority phase containing a core of metallic chromium and cobalt was also observed.

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We report a simple, versatile in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) approach for investigating the nucleation and growth mechanism of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), by which the composition, phase transition, and physical state of various catalysts can be clearly resolved. In our approach, catalyst nanoparticles (NPs) are placed in a multiwall CNT "tubular furnace" with two open ends, and a high temperature is obtained by Joule heating in the specimen chamber of a TEM. The carbon is supplied by electron irradiation-induced injection of carbon atoms. Comparative studies on the catalytic behavior of traditional iron oxide and recently discovered gold catalysts were performed. It was found that the growth of CNTs from iron oxide involves the reduction of Fe2O3 to Fe3C, nucleation and growth of CNTs from partially liquefied Fe3C, and finally the formation of elemental Fe when the growth stops. In contrast, while changes in shape, size, and orientation were also observed for the fluctuating Au NPs, no chemical reactions or phase transitions occurred during the nucleation of CNTs. These two distinct nucleation and growth processes and mechanisms would be valuable for the structure-controlled growth of CNTs by catalyst design and engineering.