Gold nanoparticles covered with a mixed monolayer of n-dodecanethiol and 11-mercapto-1-undecanol were prepared and found to mediate the oil-water interface, providing access to stable water droplets in oil.

The boundary layer at solid-liquid interfaces is a unique reaction environment that poses significant scientific challenges to characterize and understand by experimentation alone. Using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) methods, we report on the structure and dynamics of boundary layer formation, cation mobilization and carbonation under geologic carbon sequestration scenarios (T = 323 K and...

The adsorption of a DNA fluorescent probe belonging to the thiazole orange family at the dodecane/water and dodecane/phospholipid/water interfaces has been investigated using a combination of surface second harmonic generation (SSHG) and all-atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Both approaches point to a high affinity of the cationic dye for the dodecane/water interface with a Gibbs f...

Photosystem I (PSI) is a membrane protein complex that generates photoinduced electrons and transfers them across the thylakoid membrane during photosynthesis. The PSI complex, separated from spinach leaves, was spread onto the air-water interface as a monolayer and transferred onto a gold electrode surface that was precoated with a self-assembled monolayer (SAM). The electrochemical properties...

Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) were used to study zipper and layer-by-layer multilayer assemblies of artificial photosystems based on naphthalenediimides (NDIs) attached to an oligophenylethynyl (OPE-NDI) or p-oligophenyl (POP-NDI) backbone in dry and wet state. For the most interesting OPE-NDI zipper, one obtains for the dry film a monolayer thickness of ...

Insoluble surfactant monolayers at the air/water interface undergo a phase transition from a high-temperature homogeneous state to a low-temperature demixed state, where dilute and dense phases coexist. Alternatively, the transition from a dilute phase to a dense one may be induced by compressing the monolayer at constant temperature. We consider the case where the insoluble surfactant monolaye...

The geometric and electronic structure of the metal-molecule interface in metal/molecule/metal junctions is of great interest since it affects the functionality of such units in possible nanoelectronic devices. We have investigated the interaction between water and a palladium monolayer of a Au(111)/4-mercaptopyridine/Pd junction by means of DFT calculations. A relatively strong bond between wa...

Mechanical actuators driven by water that respond to multiple stimuli, exhibit fast responses and large deformations, and generate high stress have potential in artificial muscles, motors, and generators. Meeting all these requirements in a single device remains a challenge. We report a graphene monolayer paper that undergoes reversible deformation. Its graphene oxide cells wrinkle and extend i...

Off-specular diffuse x-ray scattering measurements on both pure water and a homogeneous Langmuir monolayer of poly-g-benzyl-L-glutamate (PBLG) on water establish the validity of a proposed sum rule for scattering from capillary fluctuations on liquid surfaces. Excess scattering above the predicted capillary contribution is observed when the PBLG monolayer is compressed beyond its elastic limit....

Duramycin is a small tetracyclic peptide which binds specifically to ethanolamine phospholipids (PE). In this study, we used lipid monolayers consisting of 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl phosphatidylethanolamine (POPE) and various phosphatidylcholines (PC) to investigate the effect of duramycin on the organization of lipids and its influence on surrounding water molecules, using vibrational sum-frequency...