Challenges and Applications to Operando and In Situ TEM Imaging and Spectroscopic Capabilities in a Cryogenic Temperature Range

Abstract

The degradation mechanism of solar cells is studied operando by electrical biasing in a TEM. • Tyukalova, E.; Duchamp, M. Atomic Resolution Enabled STEM Imaging of Nanocrystals at Cryogenic Temperature J. Phys. Mater. 2020, 3, 034006. 3 Demonstrates the implementation of cryogenic STEM to delay degradation caused by radiation damage.

Recovery Mechanisms in Aged Kesterite Solar Cells

“…The in situ annealing experiments were performed using a dedicated MEMS-based TEM holder that allowed the temperature to be controlled and the specimen to be biased (not used in this study). More details about the TEM holder and the annealing procedure are described elsewhere …”

“…37 ■ ASSOCIATED CONTENT * sı Supporting InformationThe Supporting Information is available free of charge at https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsaem.1c03247.Evolution of solar cell parameters with increasing annealing temperature; log J−V plots of a new, degraded, and annealed CZTSSe device fitted with the two-diode model; HAADF-STEM cross section images of CZTSSe lamellae at RT and 225 °C; peak fitting of the Raman spectra with a box plot of the B mode Raman peak height; peak fitting of PL spectra; bandgap value extraction of CZTSSe absorbers in the degraded and annealed solar cells; device simulation parameters (PDF) Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom; orcid.org/0000-0002-0098-4420; Email: neil.beattie@northumbria.ac.uk Yongtao Qu − Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom; Email: y.qu@ northumbria.ac.uk Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom Martial Duchamp − Laboratory for In Situ and Operando Electron Nanoscopy, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 637371, Singapore; orcid.org/0000-0003-2105-3059 Bethan Ford − Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom Michael Jones − Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom Linh Lan Nguyen − Laboratory for In Situ and Operando Electron Nanoscopy, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 637371, Singapore Matthew C. Naylor − Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom…”

Materials properties characterization in the most extreme environments

“…This leads to the classical structural ductile-to-brittle transition in many alloys 108 and functionality changes, including superconductivity and magnetic phase transitions. 109 The specific temperatures and properties of interest are quite diverse, and here, we limit the discussion to high-resolution cryogenic characterization techniques that are relatively agnostic to the specifics of the underlying materials science problem. These include (1) low-temperature physical property measurement system (PPMS), [110][111][112] (2) cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM), 113 and (3) atom probe tomography (APT).…”

Cryo-EM for battery materials and interfaces: Workflow, achievements, and perspectives

“…Besides Li metal, many other battery materials are sensitive to the beam, including oxides, sulfides, and other anode materials ( Soulmi et al., 2017 ; Yang et al., 2021a ). Li-rich oxides and high-Ni oxides are subjected to surface reconstruction under continuous electron beam radiation ( Gao et al., 2020 ), suggesting the potential need for cryo-TEM to reduce the artifacts caused by the beam ( Tyukalova et al., 2021 ). He et al.…”