Dynamics of Soft Nanomaterials Captured by Transmission Electron Microscopy in Liquid Water

Abstract

In this paper we present in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of synthetic polymeric nanoparticles with emphasis on capturing motion in a solvated, aqueous state. The nanoparticles studied were obtained from the direct polymerization of a Pt(II)-containing monomer. The resulting structures provided sufficient contrast for facile imaging in situ. We contend that this technique will quickly become essential in the characterization of analogous systems, especially where dynamics are of interest in the solvated state. We describe the preparation of the synthetic micellar nanoparticles together with their characterization and motion in liquid water with comparison to conventional electron microscopy analyses.

Studies of the dynamics of biological macromolecules using Au nanoparticle–DNA artificial molecules

“…Reports using Si 3 N 4 liquid cell EM techniques 6,8,10,12 argued that the native liquid environment signicantly attenuates the structural distortion of bio-samples, including both proteins and living cells, under continuous exposure to the electron beam. The use of graphene in this context for static yet hydrated ferritin 9 and bacteria 7,11 has also shown lowering of radiation damage, possibly by rapid conductance of heat and charges.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] Such dynamics involving morphological details are critical to the functions of individual biological molecules, the feedback network of biological processes, and biomedical applications. For example, the folding and unfolding of proteins have inspired extensive theoretical and simulation efforts 2 to understand the molecular mechanisms of the exposing and hiding of active sites or binding pockets.…”

In-situ liquid phase TEM observations of nucleation and growth processes

“…This technique has been applied to a broad range of materials systems, including metallic and semiconductor nanoparticles and nanowires [9,, geochemical and biological minerals [8,10,[40][41][42], electrochemical systems (see Ref. [17] for a recent review), protein complexes [40,43,44], viruses, and self-assembling systems of organic films, vesicles, macromolecules, and nanoparticles [10,29,43,[45][46][47][48]. Moreover, nucleation and growth events can be triggered within LP-TEM liquid cells using a number of methods, including mixing of reagents [41], in-diffusion of a gaseous reactant [10], electrochemical reaction [17,18], heating [49], and through the radiolytic effects of the electron beam [50][51][52].…”

Advances in sealed liquid cells for in-situ TEM electrochemial investigation of lithium-ion battery

“…The in-situ liquid TEM has allowed quantitative analysis of processes (e.g. nanoparticle growth from solution [40][41][42]), and direct observation of beam sensitive systems (including macromolecular complexes [43,44], soft materials [45,46]) and of processes that span from the electrochemical deposition of metals [34,35], to growth of different nanostructures [40,41,[47][48][49][50]. Now it gains growing attention for LIB research.…”