Ultrahigh-resolution imaging of water networks by atomic force microscopy

Akitoshi Shiotari () and Yoshiaki Sugimoto
Additional contact information
Akitoshi Shiotari: The University of Tokyo
Yoshiaki Sugimoto: The University of Tokyo

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract Local defects in water layers growing on metal surfaces have a key influence on the wetting process at the surfaces; however, such minor structures are undetectable by macroscopic methods. Here, we demonstrate ultrahigh-resolution imaging of single water layers on a copper(110) surface by using non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM) with molecular functionalized tips at 4.8 K. AFM with a probe tip terminated by carbon monoxide predominantly images oxygen atoms, whereas the contribution of hydrogen atoms is modest. Oxygen skeletons in the AFM images reveal that the water networks containing local defects and edges are composed of pentagonal and hexagonal rings. The results reinforce the applicability of AFM to characterize atomic structures of weakly bonded molecular assemblies.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14313 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14313

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14313

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().