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Abstract

Determining the structure of amorphous materials used to be challenging due to the complexity of this material class. Despite many attempts to resolve amorphous materials by various diffraction methods as well as scanning probe methods, no-one has yet been able to carry out atomic imaging and to clearly identify the structure of amouphous materials. Only modern preparation methods in combination with advanced scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopy have succeeded in decrypting the everyday material glass. A bilayer silicate film on a ruthenium single crystal has been developed at the Fritz-Haber Institute. On the atomic level, this film is flat and ideal for using scanning probe microscopy. For the first time a clear image of an amorphous material has been obtained which allowed for the derivation of atomic sites and a ditailed analysis from real space coordinates. The text book example of the vitreous silica struture proposed by William Zachariasen in 1932 has thereby finally been verified.