Emergence of Electric Fields at the Water-C12E6 Surfactant Interface
- 1. AMOLF
- 2. ICTP
- 3. POLITO
- 4. Uppsala
- 5. Materials Characterization Facility, Genoa
Description
We study the properties of the interface of water and the surfactant hexaethylene glycol monododecyl ether (C12E6) with a combination of heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation (HD-VSFG), Kelvin-probe measurements, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We observe that the addition of the hydrogen-bonding surfactant C12E6, close to the critical micelle concentration (CMC), induces a drastic enhancement in the hydrogen bond strength of the water molecules close to the interface, as well as a flip in their net orientation. The mutual orientation of the water and C12E6 molecules leads to the emergence of a broad (∼3 nm) interface with a large electric field of ∼1 V/nm, as evidenced by the Kelvin-probe measurements and MD simulations. Our findings may open the door for the design of novel electric-field-tuned catalytic and light-harvesting systems anchored at the water–surfactant–air interface.
Files
on-the-emergence-of-electric-fields-at-the-water-c12e6-surfactant-interface.pdf
Files
(1.4 MB)
| Name | Size | Download all |
|---|---|---|
|
md5:614c2bbef631f262d1b8269eff800b1a
|
1.4 MB | Preview Download |