A decade of atom-counting in STEM: From the first results toward reliable 3D atomic models from a single projection

Quantitative structure determination is needed in order to study and understand nanomaterials at the atomic scale. Materials characterisation resulting in precise structural information is a crucial point to understand the structure–property relation of materials. Counting the number of atoms and retrieving the 3D atomic structure of nanoparticles plays an important role here. In this paper, an overview will be given of the atom-counting methodology and its applications over the past decade. The procedure to count the number of atoms will be discussed in detail and it will be shown how the performance of the method can be further improved. Furthermore, advances toward mixed element nanostructures, 3D atomic modelling based on the atom-counting results, and quantifying the nanoparticle dynamics will be highlighted. •An overview of atom-counting over the past decade is given.•It is shown how the performance of the atom-counting method can be improved.•3D atomic modelling based on atom-counting results is highlighted.•Advances toward mixed element nanostructures are discussed.•Quantifying nanoparticle dynamics using a hidden Markov model is illustrated.