Probing the Atomic Arrangement of Honeycomb Layered Oxides via Optimum Bright-Field Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (OBF–STEM)

Honeycomb-layered oxides are gaining considerable interest across diverse fields, including electrochemistry, materials science, and condensed matter physics. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has significantly advanced our atomistic understanding of these materials; however, certain honeycomb-layered oxides, particularly solid-state electrolytes, are highly beam-sensitive, making conventional TEM techniques challenging to apply. Here, we employ low-dose atomic resolution optimum bright-field (OBF) scanning TEM (STEM) to maximise the signal-to-noise ratio, enabling the probing of the arrangement of atoms in honeycomb-layered Na2Zn2TeO6. This successful application of OBF–STEM facilitates the characterisation of local atomic structures in electron-beam-sensitive honeycomb-layered materials, thereby pushing the frontier of such observation techniques towards effectively investigating emergent phenomena occurring upon topotactic ion exchange reaction with molten Ag salt.