<i>In Situ</i> Atomic-Scale Imaging of Interfacial Water under 3D Nanoscale Confinement.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33983752.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c01092 and PMC identifier 9135320.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Capillary condensation of water from vapor is an everyday phenomenon which has a wide range of scientific and technological implications. Many aspects of capillary condensation are not well understood such as the structure of interfacial water, the existence of distinct properties of confined water, or the validity of the Kelvin equation at nanoscale. We note the absence of high-spatial resolution images inside a meniscus. Here, we develop an AFM-based method to provide <i>in situ</i> atomic-scale resolution maps of the solid-water interface of a nanomeniscus (80-250 nm<sup>3</sup>). The separation between the first two hydration layers on graphite is 0.30 nm, while on mica it is 0.28 nm. Those values are very close to the ones expected for the same surfaces immersed in bulk water. Thus, the hydration layer structure on a crystalline surface is independent of the water volume.