Orchestrated mass transport for quantitative liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy

Abstract

This doctoral thesis was realized at the frontier between Liquid-Phase Transmission Electron Microscopy (LP-TEM) and Microfluidics. It contributes to the elevation of LP-TEM to a quantitative experimental technique for the study of nanoscale dynamics in liquid environments by applying concepts established in microfluidics.A workflow combining numeric modelling and experiments was elaborated. The workflow reveals and quantifies the effect of structural elements of microfluidic LP-TEM reactors on mass transport. Moreover, the effect of flow on the radiolysis reaction network was analysed. The acquired knowledge led to the development of customized LP-TEM mixing reactors with optimized mass transport.This manuscript derives general guidelines for LP-TEM flow experiments and showcases model experiments to demonstrate the progress towards quantitative LP-TEM studies.