ABSTRACT:The microscopic understanding of the crystal growth and dissolution processes have been greatly advanced by the direct imaging of nanoscale step flows by atomic force microscopy (AFM), optical interferometry and x-ray microscopy. However, one of the most fundamental events that govern their kinetics, namely, atomistic events at the step edges have not been well understood. In this study, we have developed high-speed frequency modulation AFM (FM-AFM) and enabled true atomic-resolution imaging in liquid at ~1 s/frame, which is ~50 times faster than the conventional FM-AFM. With the developed AFM, we have directly imaged subnanometer-scale surface structures around the moving step edges of calcite during its dissolution in water. The obtained images reveal that the transition region with typical width of a few nanometers is formed along the step edges. Building upon insight in previous studies, our simulations suggest that the Calcite (CaCO3) constitutes the largest carbon reservoir on Earth 1 and its dissolution plays a major role in the global carbon cycle in nature 2, 3 , as well as in technologies such as geologic CO2

On-surface chemical reactions hold the potential for manufacturing nanoscale structures directly onto surfaces by linking carbon atoms in a single-step reaction. To fabricate more complex and functionalized structures, the control of the on-surface chemical reactions must be developed significantly. Here, we present a thermally controlled sequential three-step chemical transformation of a hydrocarbon molecule on a Cu(111) surface. With a combination of high-resolution atomic force microscopy and first-principles computations, we investigate the transformation process in step-by-step detail from the initial structure to the final product via two intermediate states. The results demonstrate that surfaces can be used as catalysing templates to obtain compounds, which cannot easily be synthesized by solution chemistry.

Molecular electronics has great potential to surpass known limitations in conventional silicon-based technologies. The development of molecular electronics devices requires reliable strategies for connecting functional molecules by wire-like structures. To this end, diacetylene polymerization has been discussed as a very promising approach for contacting single molecules with a conductive polymer chain. A major challenge for future device fabrication is transferring this method to bulk insulator surfaces, which are mandatory to decouple the electronic structure of the functional molecules from the support surface.Here, we provide experimental evidence for diacetylene polymerization of 3,3 0 -(1,3-butadiyne-1,4-diyl)bisbenzoic acid precursors on the (10.4) surface of calcite, a bulk insulator with a band gap of around 6 eV. When deposited on the surface held at room temperature, ordered islands with a (1 Â 3) superstructure are observed using dynamic atomic force microscopy. A distinct change is revealed upon heating the substrate to 485 K. After heating, molecular stripes with a characteristic inner structure are formed that excellently match the expected diacetylene polymer chains in appearance and repeat distance. The corresponding density functional theory computations reveal molecular-level bonding patterns of both the (1 Â 3) superstructure and the formed striped structure, confirming the assignment of on-surface diacetylene polymerization. Transferring the concept of using diacetylene polymerization for creating conductive connections to bulk insulator surfaces paves the way towards application-relevant systems for future molecular electronic devices.

Atmospheric new-particle formation (NPF) is a very non-linear process that includes atmospheric chemistry of precursors and clustering physics as well as subsequent growth before NPF can be observed. Thanks to ongoing efforts, now there exists a tremendous amount of atmospheric data, obtained through continuous measurements directly from the atmosphere. This fact makes the analysis by human brains difficult but, on the other hand, enables the usage of modern data science techniques. Here, we calculate and explore the mutual information (MI) between observed NPF events (measured at Hyytiälä, Finland) and a wide variety of simultaneously monitored ambient variables: trace gas and aerosol particle concentrations, meteorology, radiation and a few derived quantities. The purpose of the investigations is to identify key factors contributing to the NPF. The applied mutual information method finds that the formation events are strongly linked to sulfuric acid concentration and water content, ultraviolet radiation, condensation sink (CS) and temperature. Previously, these quantities have been wellestablished to be important players in the phenomenon via dedicated field, laboratory and theoretical research. The novelty of this work is to demonstrate that the same results are now obtained by a data analysis method which operates without supervision and without the need of understanding the physics deeply. This suggests that the method is suitable to be implemented widely in the atmospheric field to discover other interesting phenomena and their relevant variables.

We report on first stages towards the formation of a surface-confined metal-organic coordination network (MOCN) by sequential deposition of biphenyl-4,4'-dicarboxylic acid and iron atoms on the surface of a bulk insulator, calcite (10.4). The influence of the deposition order on the structure formation is studied by non-contact atomic force microscopy operated in ultra-high vacuum at room temperature. It is found that sequential deposition facilitates MOCN formation when the organic linker molecules are first adsorbed on the surface, followed by iron deposition. This observation is explained by first-principles computations, indicating that the metal-molecule interaction dominates over the molecule-molecule interaction on the surface. The observed MOCN islands are elongated in the [010] substrate direction, demonstrating a templating effect of the underlying substrate. This experimental finding is confirmed by calculations suggesting that the MOCN network matches the calcite lattice periodicity in [010] direction, but not in the [-4-21] direction. This work, thus, demonstrates the decisive influence of both deposition order and lattice matching on the formation of an extended MOCN on a bulk insulator surface.