Cationic surface reconstructions on cerium oxide nanocrystals: an aberration-corrected HRTEM study.

Instabilities of nanoscale ceria surface facets are examined on the atomic level. The electron beam and its induced atom migration are proposed as a readily available probe to emulate and quantify functional surface activity, which is crucial for, for example, catalytic performance. In situ phase contrast high-resolution transmission electron microscopy with spherical aberration correction is shown to be the ideal tool to analyze cationic reconstruction. Hydrothermally prepared ceria nanoparticles with particularly enhanced {100} surface exposure are explored. Experimental analysis of cationic reconstruction is supported by molecular dynamics simulations where the Madelung energy is shown to be directly related to the binding energy, which enables one to generate a visual representation of the distribution of "reactive" surface oxygen.