DOI: 10.1126/science.1135080. The Problem with Determining Atomic Structure at the Nanoscale

The Problem with Determining Atomic Structure at the Nanoscale

10.1126/science.1135080

Crossref journal-article

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Science (221)

Abstract

Emerging complex functional materials often have atomic order limited to the nanoscale. Examples include nanoparticles, species encapsulated in mesoporous hosts, and bulk crystals with intrinsic nanoscale order. The powerful methods that we have for solving the atomic structure of bulk crystals fail for such materials. Currently, no broadly applicable, quantitative, and robust methods exist to replace crystallography at the nanoscale. We provide an overview of various classes of nanostructured materials and review the methods that are currently used to study their structure. We suggest that successful solutions to these nanostructure problems will involve interactions among researchers from materials science, physics, chemistry, computer science, and applied mathematics, working within a “complex modeling” paradigm that combines theory and experiment in a self-consistent computational framework.

Bibliography

Billinge, S. J. L., & Levin, I. (2007). The Problem with Determining Atomic Structure at the Nanoscale. Science, 316(5824), 561â565.

Authors 2

Simon J. L. Billinge (first)
Igor Levin (additional)

References 54 Referenced 630

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Many people contributed to this work in many ways but we would especially like to acknowledge P. Duxbury T. Vanderah S. Haile M. Kanatzidis S. Sinnott L. Bartolo M. Thorpe H. Kim and E. Cockayne for useful contributions and T. Pinnavaia for allowing us to use an unpublished image. S.J.L.B. would like to thank his group members past and present for their hard work and important contributions to nanostructure research. Work in the S.J.L.B. group benefited through support from NSF (grant DMR-0304391) and the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences (grant DE-FG02-97ER45651).

Dates

Type	When
Created	18 years, 3 months ago (April 26, 2007, 4:38 p.m.)
Deposited	1 year, 7 months ago (Jan. 10, 2024, 3:40 a.m.)
Indexed	2 weeks, 1 day ago (Aug. 7, 2025, 4:56 a.m.)
Issued	18 years, 3 months ago (April 27, 2007)
Published	18 years, 3 months ago (April 27, 2007)
Published Print	18 years, 3 months ago (April 27, 2007)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Billinge_2007, title={The Problem with Determining Atomic Structure at the Nanoscale}, volume={316}, ISSN={1095-9203}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1135080}, DOI={10.1126/science.1135080}, number={5824}, journal={Science}, publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}, author={Billinge, Simon J. L. and Levin, Igor}, year={2007}, month=apr, pages={561–565} }

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