Electrochemical nanotechnology preparative aspects

For advanced electrochemical applications of SAMs in this area, their design is, therefore, a key issue. While SAMs are often perceived to form easily well-defined structures, a closer look into the literature reveals that thiol SAMs, in fact, very often lack the structural quality anticipated. Contrasting their ease of preparation, orga-nosulfur SAMs represent systems whose structure is determined by a complex interplay of interactions and if those are not properly taken into account, a SAM of limited structural quality and performance will result. To optimize SAMs for electrochemical applications and to exploit their properties for electrochemical nanotechnology it is, therefore, crucial to identify the factors controlling their structure. For this reason we start with an account of the structural aspects of SAMs. 

Summary. Electrochemical nanotechnology and its analytical and preparative aspects using local probe techniques such as STM and AFM are described. Typical examples for in-situ application of local probe methods in different electrochemical systems are discussed UPD and OPD of metals and nanostructuring of metal, semiconductor, and superconductor surfeces. 

Electrochemical phase formation, phase transition and dissolution processes play an imponant role in the preparative aspect of electrochemical nanotechnology. Under electrochemical conditions, super- or undersaturation can be exactly controlled and rapidly changed via the electrode potential, providing a further great advantage of the application of local probe techniques under electrochemical conditions. 

Several times spectacular results were reported of nanostructuring of solid siufaces. However, one author writes the technique is still in a prelimanary stage". Therefore, the preparative aspect of electrochemical nanotechnology might be the dominant one even in the first years of the 21st century. 

The combination of in-situ local probe techniques and classical steady-state and nonsteady-state electrochemical measurements gives new information on the local and global behavior of electrified solid/liquid interfeces with respect to analytical and preparative nanotechnological aspects. 

Nanotechnology is a very active field of science and technology, which has major implications in electrochemistry and in many other fields. In this chapter we shall limit our discussion to some fundamental aspects of the physics of nanoparticles that are relevant to the preparation of electrode materials in electrochemical energy-conversion devices. The many ingenious methods of preparation and application of nanopartides in electrochemistry are widely discuss in the literature and wiU not be treated here. 

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