Probing the medium-range order of amorphous materials via the pair-angle distribution function technique

scite shows how a scientific paper has been cited by providing the context of the citation, a classification describing whether it supports, mentions, or contrasts the cited claim, and a label indicating in which section the citation was made.

Header Abstract Content Author and article information References Comments

Record: found
Abstract: found
Conference Proceedings: found

Is Open Access

Probing the medium-range order of amorphous materials via the pair-angle distribution function technique

Published

conference-abstract

Author(s): Alan Salek ¹ , Dougal McCulloch ¹ , Andrew V. Martin ¹ ^,

Publication date (Electronic): 21 January 2025

Conference name: 13th Asia Pacific Microscopy Congress 2025 (APMC13)

Conference date: 2-7 Febuary 2025

Keywords: pair-angle distribution function, amorphous materials, 4DSTEM, scanning nanobeam diffraction

Bookmark

Abstract

It is well established by pair-distribution techniques that amorphous materials have short-range order[ 1], which is determined by local bonding and constrains the first and second nearest neighbour positions. It remains an outstanding question as to whether amorphous contain medium-range order, beyond second nearest neighbours[ 1- 3]. It is often assumed that these materials are continuous random networks that do not contain medium-range order. However, there are high-profile studies claiming to have detected medium-range order in amorphous carbon and silicon materials that resembles the crystalline forms of these materials over 1-2 nm length scales[ 3- 7]. Hence, the question medium-range order remains open and unresolved.

Here we present the pair-angle distribution function technique[ 8- 10] as an approach to studying medium-range order in amorphous materials. This method using scanning diffraction data, similar to 4DSTEM data, and processes it via correlation analysis as shown in Fig. 1. The final step to convert the intensity correlations to real space to obtain three- and four-atom distribution (the PADF) that contains information about local angular structure. We demonstrate that experimental PADF measurements contain valuable information about medium-range order of amorphous materials up to 1nm in length scale, well-beyond the second neighbour distance. We discuss the potential applications to carbon and silicon based amorphous materials, with a particular focus on sp ³ bonded materials[ 11].

Figure 1.

Diffraction data is collected with a scanning focused electron beam. An ensemble of diffraction patterns is processed via correlation analysis to produce an angular intensity correlation function. The angular function is converted to real-space to obtain the pair-angle distribution function (PADF). The angular peaks in the PADF are produced by specific three- and four-atom arrangements in the sample and are a sensitive probe of the local 3D structure.

Content

Author and article information

Conference

Publication date (Electronic): 21 January 2025

Electronic Location Identifier: e114

Affiliations

[1 ]School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Author notes

*Corresponding author: andrew.martin@ 123456rmit.edu.au

Author information

Alan Salek https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7229-332X

Dougal McCulloch https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4548-1955

Andrew V. Martin https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3704-1829

Article

DOI: 10.14293/APMC13-2025-0114

SO-VID: 808ca2be-fef0-4253-9a71-b90d310637e7

License:

Published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International ( CC BY 4.0). Users are allowed to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially), as long as the authors and the publisher are explicitly identified and properly acknowledged as the original source.

Conference name: 13th Asia Pacific Microscopy Congress 2025

Conference acronym: APMC13

Conference number: 13

Conference location: Brisbane, Australia

Conference date: 2-7 Febuary 2025

History

Funding

Funded by: Australian Research Council

Award ID: DP190103027

The authors acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council for funding (DP190103027).

References

SJL Billinge and I Levin, Science, 316, 561 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1135080
SR Elliott, Nature, 354, 445 (1991). http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/354445a0
J Robertson, Materials Science and Engineering: R: Reports, 37, 129 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-796X(02)00005-0
MMJ Treacy and KB Borisenko, Science, 335, 950 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1214780
D Dahal, SR Elliott, and P Biswas, Phys. Rev. B, 105, 115203 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.115203
Y Shang et al., Nature, 599, 599 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03882-9
H Tang et al., Nature, 599, 605 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04122-w
AV Martin, IUCrJ, 4, 24 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1107/S2052252516016730
AV Martin, P Adams, J Binns, IUCrJ, 57, 877 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576724002796
AV Martin, Small, 16, 2000828 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202000828
AG Salek, et al., Applied Physics Letters, 2023. 122(18). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0147494

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] SJL Billinge and I Levin, Science, 316, 561 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1135080

[2] SR Elliott, Nature, 354, 445 (1991). http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/354445a0

[3] J Robertson, Materials Science and Engineering: R: Reports, 37, 129 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0927-796X(02)00005-0

[4] MMJ Treacy and KB Borisenko, Science, 335, 950 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1214780

[5] D Dahal, SR Elliott, and P Biswas, Phys. Rev. B, 105, 115203 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.105.115203

[6] Y Shang et al., Nature, 599, 599 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03882-9

[7] H Tang et al., Nature, 599, 605 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04122-w

[8] AV Martin, IUCrJ, 4, 24 (2017) https://doi.org/10.1107/S2052252516016730

[9] AV Martin, P Adams, J Binns, IUCrJ, 57, 877 (2024) https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576724002796

[10] AV Martin, Small, 16, 2000828 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202000828

[11] AG Salek, et al., Applied Physics Letters, 2023. 122(18). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0147494

Probing the medium-range order of amorphous materials via the pair-angle distribution function technique

Conference

Affiliations

Author notes

Author information

Article

History

Funding

Categories

Comment on this article