Visible and UV Irradiation of ETEM Samples for In-Situ Studies of Photocatalysts

Today, energy production and storage is a primary concern, for everyone from policy-makers to business professionals to fundamental researchers.Photocatalysis is one field of energy research where storage and production are integrated, an ideal situation.However, much fundamental research is still needed to quantitatively connect the structure and processing of catalysts with their properties and performance, both of which must be enhanced.Often the structural features involved in catalytic processes are at the nano-scale or below.Clearly, characterization techniques such as TEM are thus a crucial part of any such fundamental research.This research focuses on enhancing current environmental TEM studies of photocatalysts by providing high intensity visible and UV illumination of the sample within an environmental transmission electron microscope (ETEM).This will allow detailed analysis of the interaction between light and photocatalysts such as TiO 2 under reaction conditions.