Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 4, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
DOI: 10.1038/srep07189
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Funding
- National Science Council of the R.O.C. [NSC99-2112-M-001-029-MY3, NSC102-2112-M-001-024-MY3]
- Academia Sinica
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The thermodynamic properties of gases have been understood primarily through phase diagrams of bulk gases. However, observations of gases confined in a nanometer space have posed a challenge to the principles of classical thermodynamics. Here, we investigated interfacial structures comprising either O-2 or N-2 between water and a hydrophobic solid surface by using advanced atomic force microscopy techniques. Ordered epitaxial layers and cap-shaped nanostructures were observed. In addition, pancake-shaped disordered layers that had grown on top of the epitaxial base layers were observed in oxygen-supersaturated water. We propose that hydrophobic solid surfaces provide low-chemical-potential sites at which gas molecules dissolved in water can be adsorbed. The structures are further stabilized by interfacial water. Here we show that gas molecules can agglomerate into a condensed form when confined in a sufficiently small space under ambient conditions. The crystalline solid surface may even induce a solid-gas state when the gas-substrate interaction is significantly stronger than the gas-gas interaction. The ordering and thermodynamic properties of the confined gases are determined primarily according to interfacial interactions.
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