Basic SECM apparatus

Figure 1 is a schematic of a basic SECM apparatus comprising a tip position controller, an electrochemical cell (including tip, substrate, counterelectrode, and reference electrode), bipotentiostat, and data acquisition system. The tip is usually mounted on the z-axis of an x-y-z stage... 

The apparatus and basic principles of SECM [28] were described in Section 5.6. 

The basic apparatus used for the SECM/ITIES experiments is essentially the same as for any other SECM measurements (see Chapter 2). Before SECM measurements, the tip UME is positioned in the top phase and biased at a potential where the tip process is diffusion-controlled. Typically, both liquid phases are placed into a small (2 mL) beaker. In this arrangement the less dense phase forms the top layer. If one wants the less dense phase to be the bottom phase, a small (10-50 /jlL) volume of it can be stabilized at the end of glass capillary inside the other phase (23). A list of liquid/liquid systems used for ET studies by SECM is shown in Table 1. 

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