Beginning with this issue Microscopy and Microanalysis will be published by the Cambridge University Press in New York. The high-quality production standards established by our former publisher, Springer-Verlag, will be maintained and improved over the coming years. Major changes you may notice are the increased number of pages for scientific articles and the decreased cost of subscriptions for institutional libraries and for members of affiliated societies. An indication of the quality and reputation of the journal is shown by our favorable Impact Factor ranking from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). In 1999, ISI ranked Microscopy and Microanalysis the number four microscopy journal in the world. The journal is affiliated with eleven microscopy and microanalysis societies around the world making it truly an international communications vehicle. In fact, Microscopy and Microanalysis has the largest paid circulation of any microscopy journal in the world. On behalf of the Editors and the Editorial Board, I thank the authors, reviewers, advertisers, and readers for supporting this journal during its formative years. I look forward to your continuing support.

This issue is dedicated to Professor Sir John Meurig Thomas for his renowned contributions to electron microscopy in the chemical sciences. It is a collection of peer-reviewed leading articles in electron microscopy, based on the presentations at the Microscopy and Microanalysis (M&M) 2000 symposium, which was held to honor Professor Thomas's exceptional scientific leadership and wide-ranging fundamental contributions in the chemical applications of electron microscopy.

α-Si3N4 nanorods with 20–80 nm width were synthesized by carbothermal reduction of SiO with amorphous activated carbon (AAC) as a reductant. Microstructural characterization of the synthesized nanorods was carried out by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. Many Si3N4 nanorods were found to be twisted. Each twisted nanorod contained several straight Si3N4 parts. The straight parts had the rod axes orientated along the 〈1010〉 direction, which is the closest packing direction of α-Si3N4. There were two kinds of joints between the two adjacent straight Si3N4 parts. Formation mechanism of the Si3N4 nanorods is discussed.

Lattice strains around a platelet oxygen precipitate in Si wafer is studied by energy filtering convergent-beam electron diffraction (CBED) and calculations based on the finite element method (FEM). Local lattice strains are measured from CBED patterns obtained with a probe size less than 2 nm in a specimen thicker than 450 nm. Strains measured are compressive along a direction normal to a plate of the precipitate and tensile along a direction parallel to the plate. Two-dimensional stress fields near the precipitate are obtained with FEM computer analyses by fitting the measured strains. It appears that shear stresses are concentrated at the end of the precipitate edge and the maximum shear stress at an interface between the precipitate and the Si-matrix is 1.9 GPa. It is demonstrated that a combination of the energy filtering CBED and FEM is very useful for the study of local strains near interfaces in semiconductor devices, in particular for the study of stress fields that are too steep for application of the conventional CBED technique.

Behavior of fine crystalline particles of W5Si3 on a β-Si3N4 substrate at high temperatures was observed by an in situ heating experiment in a transmission electron microscope. Some of the fine particles of W5Si3 moved in a to-and-fro manner.

We present the development of in situ wet environmental transmission electron microscopy (Wet-ETEM) for direct probing of controlled liquid–catalyst reactions at operating temperatures on the nanoscale. The first nanoscale imaging and electron diffraction of dynamic liquid hydrogenation and polymerization reactions in the manufacture of polyamides reported here opens up new opportunities for high resolution studies of a wide range of solution–solid and solution–gas–solid reactions in the chemical and biological sciences.

Topologically modeled amorphized silica structures have been refined using a molecular dynamics simulation technique. Several metastable structures with substantially different medium-range connectivities, as characterized by primitive ring statistics, were obtained. Whereas the total correlation function is insensitive to these differences, the first sharp diffraction peak derived from energy-filtered electron diffraction shows a promising correlation to medium-range structure.

Structures of Pt-nanowires, synthesized in channels of silica mesoporous materials MCM-41, SBA-15 and MCM-48, were investigated by transmission electron microscopy. One dimensional (1D) Pt-nanowires were formed inside the channels of the MCM-41, and were single crystals with a length of several tens to several hundreds nanometers and a diameter of ca. 3 nm Pt-nanowires synthesized in SBA-15 formed a new 3D-network following 3D-pore geometry of SBA-15; that is, the main 1D-channels are interconnected to each other through randomly distributed tunnels. These Pt-nanowires showed a well single crystalline. MCM-48 has two non-intersecting chiral channels, and Pt-networks were mostly formed in one of the two channels. Therefore the networks were also chiral; however, the chirality of Pt-networks remained to be determined. It was shown that all Pt-nanowires were formed following the channel geometries of silica mesoporous materials used.

The supreme advantages of electron microscopy (EM) in the chemical sciences are briefly recalled: By judicious use of electron optical techniques, vital information of a structural, mechanistic, compositional, and often of an electronic kind may be retrieved. Not only are insights gained (through EM) into the existence of whole new families of structures hitherto unperceived, but one also uncovers the structural characteristics of imperfections in solids. And it is often the case that these imperfections reflect or suggest altogether new structures, hitherto unconceived. EM is, therefore, a powerful agent for aiding chemical synthesis of new materials. This is particularly important in the field of heterogeneous catalysis, since altogether new types of catalytic materials may be, on the one hand, defined, described, identified, and characterised, and, on the other, designed and synthesised. There is also the ever-improving role of the electron microscope as an analytical tool: Very few other techniques within reach of the chemist can rival it in its sensitivity and detection limits. (Scanning instruments now permit the imaging and the identification of nanoclusters consisting of just a few atoms.) But there are numerous other branches of chemistry besides catalysis and surface science where EM proves invaluable, as we outline herein, in elucidating structure–property or composition and structure interrelationships.

The structural and chemical heterogeneity of 2.5-nm Pt50Ru50 electrocatalysts was studied by transmission electron microscopy using selected area diffraction, lattice imaging, electron-energy loss spectroscopy, and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The catalysts with the highest methanol oxidation activities exhibit oxidation-induced phase separation on the nanoscale to form Pt-rich metal embedded in Ru-rich hydrous and anhydrous oxide. Reduction of the oxide-on-metal samples produces a true bimetallic face-centered cubic Pt50Ru50 alloy, with 275 times lower oxidation activity.

Nanowires of bismuth with diameters ranging from 10 to 200 nm and lengths of 50 μm have been synthesized by a pressure injection method. Nanostructural and chemical compositional studies using environmental and high resolution transmission electron microscopy with electron stimulated energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy have revealed essentially single crystal nanowires. The high resolution studies have shown that the nanowires contain amorphous Bi-oxide layers of a few nanometers on the surface. In situ environmental high resolution transmission electron microscopy (environmental-HRTEM) studies at the atomic level, in controlled hydrogen and other reducing gas environments at high temperatures demonstrate that gas reduction can be successfully applied to remove the oxide nanolayers and to maintain the dimensional and structural uniformity of the nanowires, which is key to attaining low electrical contact resistance.

Gold nanoparticles have been synthesized using n-alkylthiol molecules as a passivating agent. By fixing the length of the thiol chain, it is possible to produce nanocrystal arrays, such as 1D chains, 2D arrays of chains, and 3D crystals.