Designing Energy Materials via Atomic-resolution Microscopy and Spectroscopy

In recent years, our sensitivity for imaging and spectroscopy has dramatically improved due to aberration correction, greatly assisting the correlation of atomic-scale structure and bonding to materials' properties. Trial and error materials' development is increasingly being replaced by atomic scale engineering, informed by the powerful combination of microscopy and theoretical calculations. Here we present some recent applications of this approach to catalysts, batteries and thermoelectric materials.