Investigating sub-nanometer scale structures of ionic liquid - Au electrode interfaces by 3D scanning force microscopy

Abstract

Electrical double layer at ionic liquid (IL)-solid interface shows relatively high charge density and its visualization at nanometer scale is expected to be applies in many devices. In this study, using 3D scanning force microscopy (3D-SFM) which enables to image the solid-liquid interface with a sub-nanometer scale resolution, we achieved 3D imaging of interfacial structures between IL and gold electrode with the applied bias voltage. As the result, these structures show not only a strong dependence on the bias voltage, but also in-plane un-uniformity.