In situ disordering of monoclinic titanium monoxide Ti5O5 studied by transmission electron microscope TEM.

The superlattice and domain structures exhibited by ordered titanium monoxide Ti5O5 are disrupted by low energy electron beam irradiation. The effect is attributed to the disordering of the oxygen and titanium sublattices. This disordering is caused by the displacement of both oxygen and titanium atoms by the incident electrons and results in a phase transformation of the monoclinic phase Ti5O5 into cubic B1 titanium monoxide. In order to determine the energies required for the displacement of titanium or oxygen atoms, i.e. threshold displacement energies, a systematic study of the disappearance of superstructure reflections with increasing electron energy and electron bombardment dose has been performed in situ in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). An incident electron energy threshold between 120 and 140 keV has been observed. This threshold can be ascribed to the displacements of titanium atoms with 4 as well as with 5 oxygen atoms as nearest neighbors. The displacement threshold energy of titanium atoms in Ti5O5 corresponding with the observed incident electron threshold energy lies between 6.0 and 7.5 eV. This surprisingly low value can be explained by the presence of either one or two vacant oxygen lattice sites in the nearest neighbors of all titanium atoms.

Real space modulation in Bi2Sr2CanCun + 1O6+2n and Tl2Ba2CuO6 superconductors derived from electron diffraction information.

We will try to illustrate here that, simply from the geometry of the electron diffraction pattern of an incommensurably modulated structure, conclusive information can be obtained on the real space shape of this modulation. The method applied here is based on the 3 + 1 dimensional description of symmetry operations and can be summarized as follows: 1) reconstruct the three-dimensional reciprocal space geometry of the modulated structure from electron diffraction information along different zone axes; 2) deduce the complete Bravais type symbol of the four-dimensional structure from the general reflection conditions; and 3) derive the modulation function for each atom type from the superspace symmetry elements which result from the information of both modulation and basic structure. This method will be applied here in short on the Bi2Sr2CanCun + 1O6+2n strucutre, for which system the results are in agreement with the ones recently obtained from neutron diffraction. For Tl2Ba2CuO6 where no data from other diffraction techniques are available, a more complete calculation will be performed, in order to determine the shape of the displacement function for the different atom types; the results are in agreement with the observed High Resolution Electron Microscopy (HREM) images.