Handedness or chirality determination is a challenging and important topic in various fields including chemistry and biology, as two enantiomers have the same composition and mirror symmetry related structures, but might show totally different activities and properties in enantioselective separations, catalysis and so on. However, current methods are unable to reveal the handedness locally of a nanocrystal at the atomic-level in real-space imaging due to the well-known fact that chiral information is lost in a two-dimensional projection. Herein, we present a method for handedness determination of chiral crystals by atomic-resolution imaging using Cs-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy. In particular, we demonstrate that enantiomorphic structures can be distinguished through chirality-dependent features in two-dimensional projections by comparing a tilt-series of high-resolution images along different zone axes. The method has been successfully applied to certify the specific enantiomorphic forms of tellurium, tantalum silicide and quartz crystals, and it has the potential to open up new possibilities for rational synthesis and characterization of chiral crystals.

手性或手性的确定在化学和生物学等各个领域都是具有挑战性和重要的课题，因为两种对映异构体具有相同的组成和与镜像对称相关的结构，但在对映选择性分离，催化等方面可能表现出完全不同的活性和性质。然而，由于众所周知的事实，即手性信息在二维投影中丢失，因此当前方法无法在真实空间成像中以原子级局部揭示纳米晶体的惯性。在这里，我们介绍一种通过使用Cs校正的扫描透射电子显微镜通过原子分辨率成像来确定手性晶体的手性的方法。尤其是，我们证明，通过比较沿不同区域轴的高分辨率图像的倾斜序列，可以通过二维投影中的手征性相关特征来区分对映体结构。该方法已成功地应用于证明碲，硅化钽和石英晶体的特定对映体形式，并且有可能为合理合成和表征手性晶体开辟新的可能性。