Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology;
J Vis Exp. 2021 Feb 10(168). doi: 10.3791/61111.
Scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) is used to measure the local electrochemical behavior of liquid/solid, liquid/gas and liquid/liquid interfaces. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a versatile tool to characterize micro- and nanostructure in terms of topography and mechanical properties. However, conventional SECM or AFM provides limited laterally resolved information on electrical or electrochemical properties at nanoscale. For instance, the activity of a nanomaterial surface at crystal facet levels is difficult to resolve by conventional electrochemistry methods. This paper reports the application of a combination of AFM and SECM, namely, AFM-SECM, to probe nanoscale surface electrochemical activity while acquiring high-resolution topographical data. Such measurements are critical to understanding the relationship between nanostructure and reaction activity, which is relevant to a wide range of applications in material science, life science and chemical processes. The versatility of the combined AFM-SECM is demonstrated by mapping topographical and electrochemical properties of faceted nanoparticles (NPs) and nanobubbles (NBs), respectively. Compared to previously reported SECM imaging of nanostructures, this AFM-SECM enables quantitative assessment of local surface activity or reactivity with higher resolution of surface mapping.
扫描电化学显微镜（SECM）用于测量固/液、液/气和液/液界面的局部电化学行为。原子力显微镜（AFM）是一种通用工具，可用于形貌和机械性能方面的微纳结构特征分析。然而，传统的 SECM 或 AFM 提供的关于纳米尺度电或电化学性质的横向分辨率信息有限。例如，通过传统电化学方法很难解析纳米材料表面在晶面水平上的活性。本文报告了原子力显微镜和扫描电化学显微镜的组合应用，即原子力显微镜-扫描电化学显微镜（AFM-SECM），用于探测纳米尺度表面电化学活性，同时获取高分辨率形貌数据。这些测量对于理解纳米结构与反应活性之间的关系至关重要，而这种关系与材料科学、生命科学和化学过程等广泛的应用领域息息相关。通过分别对具有面的纳米颗粒（NPs）和纳米气泡（NBs）的形貌和电化学性质进行成像，展示了组合式 AFM-SECM 的多功能性。与之前报道的用于纳米结构的 SECM 成像相比，这种 AFM-SECM 能够以更高的表面映射分辨率，对局部表面活性或反应性进行定量评估。
