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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Proton driven vase-to-kite conformational change in cavitands at an air-water interface monitored by surface SHG
François Lagugné-Labarthet1, Yong Q An, Tao Yu
1Department of Physics, University of California Berkeley, 366 Leconte Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.
Abstract:
The conformational changes of quinoxaline-bridged cavitands deposited as Langmuir films were monitored at different pH values of the subphase using surface second harmonic generation during the compression of the monolayer at the water surface. A quantitative analysis of the susceptibility tensor elements was performed for methylene (MeCav)- and quinoxaline (QxCav)-bridged cavitands for pH values varying between 5.7 and 0.1. For MeCav (reference compound), no significant changes were observed for different pHs, confirming that the cavity does not undergo protonation or a drastic conformational change. For the QxCav, however, the results suggest a partial opening of the cavity on the basis of analysis of the compression curves.
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