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Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
The metal-ionic liquid interface as characterized by impedance spectroscopy and in situ scanning tunneling microscopy
Tamás Pajkossy1, Claus Müller, Timo Jacob
1Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Magyar tudósok körútja 2, Budapest, H-1117, Hungary. pajkossy.tamas@ttk.mta.hu.
Abstract:
We summarize our results of electrochemical measurements carried out on inert or close-to-inert metals in ionic liquids, with the aim to explore the metal|ionic liquid interface structure. To this we used electrochemical methods: cyclic voltammetry, impedance spectroscopy, potential of zero total charge measurements and structure-sensitive techniques, such as in situ scanning tunneling spectroscopy. The studied systems were mostly single crystals of noble metals in imidazolium-based ionic liquids. The two main findings are: (i) in the potential window where no Faradaic reactions occur, the interfacial capacitance exhibits a frequency dependence due to double-layer rearrangement processes and (ii) in certain cases ordered anion and cation structures exist at the interface.
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