Anharmonicity, solvation forces, and resolution in atomic force microscopy at the solid-liquid interface

Solid-liquid interfaces are central to nanoscale science and technology and control processes as diverse as self-assembly, heterogeneous catalysis, wetting, electrochemistry, or protein function. Experimentally, measuring the structure and dynamics of solid-liquid interfaces with molecular resolution remains a challenge. This task can, in principle, be achieved with atomic force microscopy (AFM), which functions locally, and with nanometer precision. When operated dynamically and at small amplitudes, AFM can provide molecular-level images of the liquid solvation layers at the interfaces. At larger amplitudes, results in the field of multifrequency AFM have shown that anharmonicities in the tip motion can provide quantitative information about the solid's mechanical properties. The two approaches probe opposite aspects of the interface and are generally seen as distinct. Here it is shown that, for amplitudes A < d, the thickness of the solvation region, the tip mainly probes the interfacial liquid, and subnanometer resolution can be achieved through solvation forces. For A > d, the tip trajectory becomes rapidly anharmonic due to the tip tapping the solid, and the resolution decreases. A nonlinear transition between the two regimes occurs for A similar to d and can be quantified with the second harmonic of the tip oscillation. These results, confirmed by computer simulations, remain valid in most experimental conditions. Significantly, they provide an objective criterion to enhance resolution and to decide whether the results are dominated by the properties of the solid or of the liquid.

Characterization of Solid-Liquid Interfaces with High-Resolution Atomic Force Microscop

Maria Ricci

Solid-liquid interfaces are ubiquitous. Despite the unquestioned relevance, many scientific research fields rely on simplified or macroscopic descriptions, discarding the molecular nature of the constituents. However, it is the specific molecular interactions and the complex chemistry in the interfacial region that are fundamental in phenomena such as heterogeneous catalysis, electrochemistry, crystal growth, membrane transport and body-antibody recognition. In particular, the models used to describe the so-called electrical double layer of ionic distributions at charged surfaces in liquid, are based on continuum assumptions. For example, the Gouy-Chapman-Stern model assumes that a dense, homogenously distributed layer with a thickness of a hydrated ion (referred to as the "Stern layer"), is adsorbed onto the charged surface, proceeded by an exponentially decaying diffuse ionic cloud, in which ions are point charges in a continuous dielectric media. In this thesis, I will first illustrate how the assumption of a homogeneous ion lateral density in the Stern Layer fails to describe the actual solid-water interface of several relevant surfaces. Then I will show how the lateral organization of the ions indeed plays a role as important as the vertical modulation of the charge distribution. This is because the molecular nature of the ions, the surface, and the water molecules themselves each contribute to the precise lateral organization of the constituents. As result, the ions can reside on discrete surface sites, defined both laterally and vertically in space. Moreover, the water-mediated interaction can impart a correlation in the reciprocal lateral distribution of the ions. To achieve this level of description, high-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) is used. Unlike most of other experimental techniques, AFM is able to characterize interfaces locally at the atomic/molecular level. In fact, in the AFM small-amplitude regime, detection of even single ions adsorbed at the surface of the solid is possible by measuring the perturbation they induce on the local solvation environment. This capability represents an invaluable tool for the exploration of phenomena occurring at the Stern layer of solid-liquid interfaces. Following, I will investigate the properties of several solid-aqueous interfaces in the presence of different ionic concentrations and species, ranging from hard (mica) to soft systems such as organic self-assembled monolayers, lipid bilayers, and the dynamic surface restructuring of calcite when covered with fatty acid molecules. The experimental study, combined with molecular dynamic simulations, reveals a water-induced ion-ion attractive interaction for some ionic species. These results show that water alone is the driving force to induce order within the Stern layer, creating hydration-correlation effects on mica, self-assembled monolayers and possibly lipid bilayers. The local modulation of the hydration properties of the surface is fundamental to highly dynamic systems such as calcite, where steps act as nucleating points for the processes of dissolution and growth. The specific interaction of foreign ions and fatty acids modify these processes as well as the equilibrium between the crystal and the solution. This thesis provides clear experimental evidence of new mechanisms developing at solid-liquid interfaces paving the way for a deeper and more conscious understanding of the colloidal properties of materials.

EPFL2015

Direct mapping of the solid-liquid adhesion energy with subnanometre resolution

Francesco Stellacci, Kislon Voitchovsky

Solid-liquid interfaces play a fundamental role in surface electrochemistry(1), catalysis(2), wetting(3), self-assembly(4) and biomolecular functions(5). The interfacial energy determines many of the properties of such interfaces, including the arrangement of the liquid molecules at the surface of the solid. Diffraction techniques are often used to investigate the structure of solid-liquid interfaces(6), but measurements of irregular or inhomogeneous interfaces remain challenging. Here, we report atomic-and molecular-resolution images of various organic and inorganic samples in liquids, obtained with a commercial atomic force microscope operated dynamically with small-amplitude modulation. This approach uses the structured liquid layers close to the solid to enhance lateral resolution. We propose a model to explain the mechanism dominating the image formation, and show that the energy dissipated during this process is related to the interfacial energy through a readily achievable calibration curve. Our topographic images and interfacial energy maps could provide insights into important interfaces.

2010

Determination and evaluation of the nonadditivity in wetting of molecularly heterogeneous surfaces

Michele Ceriotti, Filip Kovacik, Zhi Luo, Anna Murello, Halil Ibrahim Okur, Quy Ong Khac, Sylvie Roke, Francesco Stellacci, David Mark Wilkins

The interface between water and folded proteins is very complex. Proteins have "patchy" solvent-accessible areas composed of domains of varying hydrophobicity. The textbook understanding is that these domains contribute additively to interfacial properties (Cassie's equation, CE). An ever-growing number of modeling papers question the validity of CE at molecular length scales, but there is no conclusive experiment to support this and no proposed new theoretical framework. Here, we study the wetting of model compounds with patchy surfaces differing solely in patchiness but not in composition. Were CE to be correct, these materials would have had the same solid-liquid work of adhesion (WSL) and time-averaged structure of interfacial water. We find considerable differences in WSL, and sum-frequency generation measurements of the interfacial water structure show distinctively different spectral features. Molecular-dynamics simulations of water on patchy surfaces capture the observed behaviors and point toward significant nonadditivity in water density and average orientation. They show that a description of the molecular arrangement on the surface is needed to predict its wetting properties. We propose a predictive model that considers, for every molecule, the contributions of its first-nearest neighbors as a descriptor to determine the wetting properties of the surface. The model is validated by measurements of WSL in multiple solvents, where large differences are observed for solvents whose effective diameter is smaller than similar to 6 angstrom. The experiments and theoretical model proposed here provide a starting point to develop a comprehensive understanding of complex biological interfaces as well as for the engineering of synthetic ones.