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Updated: Aug 29, 2025

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Discovery of a Missing Link: First Observation of the HONO-Water Complex
Ha Vinh Lam Nguyen1,2, Kenneth J Koziol3, Tarek Trabelsi4
1Univ Paris Est Creteil and Université Paris Cité, CNRS, LISA, F-94010 Créteil, France.
Abstract:
The still unexplained daytime HONO concentration in the Earth's atmosphere and the impact of water on the HONO chemistry have been a mystery for decades. Several pathways and many modeling methods have failed to reproduce the atmospheric measurements. We reveal in this study the first spectroscopic observation and characterization of the complex of HONO with water observed through its rotational signature. Under the experimental conditions, HONO-water is stable, particularly straightforward to form, and features intense absorption signals. This could explain both the influence of water on the HONO chemistry and the missing HONO sources, as well as the missing contribution of many other molecules of atmospheric relevance that skew the accuracy of field measurements and the full account of partitioning species in the atmosphere.
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