Avedian Cynthia, Trang Christina D M, Inkpen Michael S
Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089, United States.
ACS Nanosci Au. 2025 May 21;5(4):269-275. doi: 10.1021/acsnanoscienceau.5c00018. eCollection 2025 Aug 20.
Template-stripped substrates provide on-demand access to clean, ultraflat gold surfaces, avoiding the need for laborious cleaning procedures or the use of expensive single-crystal electrodes. While these gold/adhesion layer/support sandwich structures are most conveniently prepared through the application of epoxy or optical adhesives, such composites exhibit instabilities in organic solvents that limit their wider application. Here we demonstrate that substrates with solvent-impermeable metal films can be used in previously problematic chemical environments after integration into a protective, custom-built (electrochemical) flow cell. We apply our methodology to probe different self-assembled monolayers, observing reproducible alkanethiol reductive desorption features, an exemplary redox response using 6-(ferrocenyl)-hexanethiol, and corroborate findings that cobalt-(II) bis-(terpyridine) assemblies exhibit a low coverage. This work significantly extends the utility of these substrates, relative to mechanically polished or freshly deposited alternatives, particularly for studies of systems involving adsorbed molecules whose properties are strongly influenced by the nanoscopic features of the metal-solution interface.
模板剥离基板可按需提供清洁、超平坦的金表面，无需繁琐的清洁程序或使用昂贵的单晶电极。虽然这些金/粘附层/支撑夹层结构最方便通过应用环氧树脂或光学粘合剂制备，但此类复合材料在有机溶剂中表现出不稳定性，限制了它们的更广泛应用。在此，我们证明，将具有不透溶剂金属膜的基板集成到定制的（电化学）流通池中后，可用于以前存在问题的化学环境。我们应用我们的方法来探测不同的自组装单分子层，观察到可重现的链烷硫醇还原解吸特征，使用6-（二茂铁基）己硫醇的典型氧化还原响应，并证实了钴（II）双（三联吡啶）组装体覆盖率较低的发现。相对于机械抛光或新沉积的替代物，这项工作显著扩展了这些基板的实用性，特别是对于涉及吸附分子的系统的研究，这些分子的性质受到金属-溶液界面纳米级特征的强烈影响。
