Surface state influence on the surface lattice structure inBe(101¯0)

2008 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
S.-J. Tang ◽  
H.-T. Jeng ◽  
Chen-Shiung Hsue ◽  
Ismail ◽  
P. T. Sprunger ◽  
...  
Author(s):  
H. Engelhardt ◽  
R. Guckenberger ◽  
W. Baumeister

Bacterial photosynthetic membranes contain, apart from lipids and electron transport components, reaction centre (RC) and light harvesting (LH) polypeptides as the main components. The RC-LH complexes in Rhodopseudomonas viridis membranes are known since quite seme time to form a hexagonal lattice structure in vivo; hence this membrane attracted the particular attention of electron microscopists. Contrary to previous claims in the literature we found, however, that 2-D periodically organized photosynthetic membranes are not a unique feature of Rhodopseudomonas viridis. At least five bacterial species, all bacteriophyll b - containing, possess membranes with the RC-LH complexes regularly arrayed. All these membranes appear to have a similar lattice structure and fine-morphology. The lattice spacings of the Ectothiorhodospira haloohloris, Ectothiorhodospira abdelmalekii and Rhodopseudomonas viridis membranes are close to 13 nm, those of Thiocapsa pfennigii and Rhodopseudomonas sulfoviridis are slightly smaller (∼12.5 nm).


Author(s):  
David C. Joy

In a crystalline solid the regular arrangement of the lattice structure influences the interaction of the incident beam with the specimen, leading to changes in both the transmitted and backscattered signals when the angle of incidence of the beam to the specimen is changed. For the simplest case the electron flux inside the specimen can be visualized as the sum of two, standing wave distributions of electrons (Fig. 1). Bloch wave 1 is concentrated mainly between the atom rows and so only interacts weakly with them. It is therefore transmitted well and backscattered weakly. Bloch wave 2 is concentrated on the line of atom centers and is therefore transmitted poorly and backscattered strongly. The ratio of the excitation of wave 1 to wave 2 varies with the angle between the incident beam and the crystal structure.


Author(s):  
E. F. Koch

Because of the extremely rigid lattice structure of diamond, generating new dislocations or moving existing dislocations in diamond by applying mechanical stress at ambient temperature is very difficult. Analysis of portions of diamonds deformed under bending stress at elevated temperature has shown that diamond deforms plastically under suitable conditions and that its primary slip systems are on the ﹛111﹜ planes. Plastic deformation in diamond is more commonly observed during the high temperature - high pressure sintering process used to make diamond compacts. The pressure and temperature conditions in the sintering presses are sufficiently high that many diamond grains in the sintered compact show deformed microtructures.In this report commercially available polycrystalline diamond discs for rock cutting applications were analyzed to study the deformation substructures in the diamond grains using transmission electron microscopy. An individual diamond particle can be plastically deformed in a high pressure apparatus at high temperature, but it is nearly impossible to prepare such a particle for TEM observation, since any medium in which the diamond is mounted wears away faster than the diamond during ion milling and the diamond is lost.


Author(s):  
Raja Subramanian ◽  
Kenneth S. Vecchio

The structure of stacking faults and partial dislocations in iron pyrite (FeS2) have been studied using transmission electron microscopy. Pyrite has the NaCl structure in which the sodium ions are replaced by iron and chlorine ions by covalently-bonded pairs of sulfur ions. These sulfur pairs are oriented along the <111> direction. This covalent bond between sulfur atoms is the strongest bond in pyrite with Pa3 space group symmetry. These sulfur pairs are believed to move as a whole during dislocation glide. The lattice structure across these stacking faults is of interest as the presence of these stacking faults has been preliminarily linked to a higher sulfur reactivity in pyrite. Conventional TEM contrast analysis and high resolution lattice imaging of the faulted area in the TEM specimen has been carried out.


Author(s):  
L. Fei

Scanned probe microscopes (SPM) have been widely used for studying the structure of a variety material surfaces and thin films. Interpretation of SPM images, however, remains a debatable subject at best. Unlike electron microscopes (EMs) where diffraction patterns and images regularly provide data on lattice spacings and angles within 1-2% and ∽1° accuracy, our experience indicates that lattice distances and angles in raw SPM images can be off by as much as 10% and ∽6°, respectively. Because SPM images can be affected by processes like the coupling between fast and slow scan direction, hysteresis of piezoelectric scanner, thermal drift, anisotropic tip and sample interaction, etc., the causes for such a large discrepancy maybe complex even though manufacturers suggest that the correction can be done through only instrument calibration.We show here that scanning repulsive force microscope (SFM or AFM) images of freshly cleaved mica, a substrate material used for thin film studies as well as for SFM instrument calibration, are distorted compared with the lattice structure expected for mica.


Author(s):  
D. Chrétien ◽  
D. Job ◽  
R.H. Wade

Microtubules are filamentary structures found in the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells, where, together with actin and intermediate filaments, they form the components of the cytoskeleton. They have many functions and show various levels of structural complexity as witnessed by the singlet, doublet and triplet structures involved in the architecture of centrioles, basal bodies, cilia and flagella. The accepted microtubule model consists of a 25 nm diameter hollow tube with a wall made up of 13 paraxial protofilaments (pf). Each pf is a string of aligned tubulin dimers. Some results have suggested that the pfs follow a superhelix. To understand how microtubules function in the cell an accurate model of the surface lattice is one of the requirements. For example the 9x2 architecture of the axoneme will depend on the organisation of its component microtubules. We should also note that microtubules with different numbers of pfs have been observed in thin sections of cellular and of in-vitro material. An outstanding question is how does the surface lattice adjust to these different pf numbers?We have been using cryo-electron microscopy of frozen-hydrated samples to study in-vitro assembled microtubules. The experimental conditions are described in detail in this reference. The results obtained in conjunction with thin sections of similar specimens and with axoneme outer doublet fragments have already allowed us to characterise the image contrast of 13, 14 and 15 pf microtubules on the basis of the measured image widths, of the the image contrast symmetry and of the amplitude and phase behaviour along the equator in the computed Fourier transforms. The contrast variations along individual microtubule images can be interpreted in terms of the geometry of the microtubule surface lattice. We can extend these results and make some reasonable predictions about the probable surface lattices in the case of other pf numbers, see Table 1. Figure 1 shows observed images with which these predictions can be compared.


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