title: Water distribution at solid/liquid interfaces visualized by frequency modulation atomic force microscopy.
abstract: Interfacial phenomena at solid/water interfaces play an important role in a wide range of industrial technologies and biological processes. However, it has been a great challenge to directly probe the molecular-scale behavior of water at solid/water interfaces. Recently, there have been tremendous advancements in frequency modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM), enabling its operation in liquids with atomic resolution. The high spatial and force resolutions of FM-AFM have enabled the visualization of one-dimensional (1D) profiles of the hydration force, two-dimensional (2D) images of hydration layers and three-dimensional (3D) images of the water distribution at solid/water interfaces. Here I present an overview of the recent advances in FM-AFM instrumentation and its applications to the study of solid/water interfaces.
authors.affiliation: Frontier Science Organization, Kanazawa University, Kakuma-machi, Kanazawa 920-1192, Japan; PRESTO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Honcho 4-1-9, Kawaguchi 332-0012, Japan.
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fukuma
keywords: atomic resolution imaging; frequency modulation atomic force microscopy; hydration; lipid bilayer