The extended surface forces apparatus. IV. Precision static pressure control

Molecular Architecture Studied by the Surface Forces Measurement

This feature article reviews the surface forces measurement as a tool for studying molecular architecture chemistry. The history of the measurement is briefly described in the Introduction. The general overview covers specific features of the surface forces measurement as a tool for studying and using molecular architecture. This measurement is powerful for understanding interaction forces and for characterizing and discovering the phenomena at solid-liquid interfaces and soft complex matter. An apparatus for opaque samples was developed, which can be used to study not only opaque samples in various media but also electrochemical processes under various electrochemical potentials. Our studies of molecular architecture are reviewed; they include biological molecular recognition especially involved in the enzyme-substrate interaction; polyelectrolyte brushes exhibiting steric repulsion, which can be reproduced by the osmotic pressure of the counterions, and a density-dependent transition; the hydrogen-bonded molecular macrocluster formation of alcohol and carboxylic acids adsorbed on silica in nonpolar solvents such as cyclohexane; and surface forces between ferrocene-modified electrodes under various applied potentials. These studies demonstrate how the forces measurement is used to identify interacting species such as in biological systems to reveal unknown phenomena and to characterize soft complex matter and the effective potential of the electrodes. Readers will be introduced to the broad applications of the force measurement.

Surface forces between colloidal particles at high hydrostatic pressure

It was recently suggested that the electrostatic double-layer force between colloidal particles might weaken at high hydrostatic pressure encountered, for example, in deep seas or during oil recovery. We have addressed this issue by means of a specially designed optical trapping setup that allowed us to explore the interaction of a micrometer-sized glass bead and a solid glass wall in water at hydrostatic pressures of up to 1 kbar. The setup allowed us to measure the distance between bead and wall with a subnanometer resolution. We have determined the Debye lengths in water for salt concentrations of 0.1 and 1 mM. We found that in the pressure range from 1 bar to 1 kbar the maximum variation of the Debye lengths was <1 nm for both salt concentrations. Furthermore, the magnitude of the zeta potentials of the glass surfaces in water showed no dependency on pressure.

Imaging the condensation and evaporation of molecularly thin ethanol films with surface forces apparatus

A new method for imaging condensation and evaporation of molecularly thin ethanol films is reported. It is found that the first adsorbed layer of ethanol film on mica surface behaves as solid like structure that cannot flow freely. With the increase of exposure time, more ethanol molecules condense over the mica surface in the saturated ethanol vapor condition. The first layer of adsorbed ethanol film is about 3.8 Å thick measured from the surface forces apparatus, which is believed to be the average diameter of ethanol molecules while they are confined in between two atomically smooth mica surfaces.