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Cuprite Compound Red
Caption:
This image is one of the first images ever taken of atomic bonding. The image shows the electronic bonds that hold together atoms of oxygen and copper in a compound called cuprite. [See also, Cuprite Compound Blue.]
More about this Image
In January 1999, Regents Professor of Physics John Spence led a team of Arizona State University scientists in producing the first-ever real-time images of atomic bonding. Spence and his team--research scientists Jian-Min Zuo, Moon Kim, and Michael O'Keeffe--used x-ray scattering and electron diffraction techniques to captured direct images of the electronic bonds that hold together atoms of oxygen and copper in a compound called cuprite. In this image--which is real and not a computer simulation--you can see the dumbbell-shaped clouds of electrons that are shared between copper and oxygen atoms in cuprite (Cu20).
This image represents the first time the covalent bonds between atoms have ever been "seen" in cuprite. The invisible nuclei of the copper atoms are at the center of the dumbbells. Nuclei of the oxygen atoms are at the center and corners of the superimposed cube. The fuzzy green clouds are less defined electron clouds representing covalent bonds between the copper atoms.
Many chemists do not believe that such metal-to-metal bonding can occur in the material. Cuprite is a superconductor and like many similar metal oxides, it has strange electrical properties that may now be explained by these never-before-seen bonds. The work may have broad implications for new materials used in computer compounds, medical equipment, and other devices.
The National Science Foundation supports this and other research projects at Arizona State University's Center for High Resolution Electron Microscopy. The complete findings of this work were published in the September 2, 1999 issue of the journal Nature.
(Note: The ASU MRSEC was supported by the National Science Foundation at the time this research was performed.)
(Preview Only)
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| Credit: |
Credit ASU Research Magazine |
| Year of Image: |
1999 |
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Categories:
MATERIALS RESEARCH / MRSECs
PHYSICS / General
Formats Available:
Restrictions:
No additional restrictions--beyond NSF's general restrictions--have been placed on this image. For a list of general restrictions that apply to this and all images in the NSF Image Library, see the section "Conditions".
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