Amorphous carbon materials find numerous applications in diverse areas ranging from implantable biodevices to electronics and catalysis. The spontaneous grafting of aryldiazonium salts is an important strategy for the modification of these materials and it is widely used in order to display a range of functionalities or to provide anchoring groups for further functionalization. We have investigated the spontaneous attachment of 4-nitrobenzenediazonium salts from aqueous solutions onto amorphous carbon materials that differ in their sp 2 content with the aim of understanding to what extent bulk composition affects rates and yields of aryldiazonium adsorption at the carbon/solution interface. Amorphous carbons were deposited in the form of thin films via reactive magnetron sputtering, and were characterized using a combination of Raman, infrared, UV-Vis and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy in order to determine their sp 2 content. Attenuated Total Internal Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) was used to monitor in situ and in real time the aryldiazonium adsorption process at the carbon/solution interface. These measurements demonstrate that rates and yields of adsorption for the same aryldiazonium salt increase non-linearly vs. sp 2 concentration. Studies of aryldiazonium salt grafting as a function of time carried out ex situ via cyclic voltammetry showed that the amorphous carbon film with highest sp 2 content displays significantly lower grafting yields than glassy carbon, a material with 100% sp 2 content. Intercalation experiments using 4-nitrobenzylamine suggest that the difference in relative density of graphitic edge planes exposed at the carbon surface is in excellent agreement with the observed relative grafting yields. We discuss the implications of these results for the development of structure/reactivity relationships that can be leveraged for understanding the surface chemistry of disordered carbon materials.

BaFe 2 As 2 exhibits properties characteristic of the parent compounds of the newly discovered iron (Fe)-based high-T C superconductors. By combining the real space imaging of scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) with momentum space quantitative Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) we have identified the surface plane of cleaved BaFe 2 As 2 crystals as the As terminated Fe-As layer -the plane where superconductivity occurs. LEED and STM/S data on the BaFe 2 As 2 (001) surface indicate an ordered arsenic (As) -terminated metallic surface without reconstruction or lattice distortion. It is surprising that the STM images the different Fe-As orbitals associated with the orthorhombic structure, not the As atoms in the surface plane.

Carbohydrates are extremely important biomolecules and their immobilization onto solid surfaces is of interest for the development of new biomimetic materials and of new methods for understanding processes in glycobiology. We have developed an efficient surface modification methodology for the functionalization of a range of materials with biologically active carbohydrates based on aryldiazonium chemistry. We describe the synthesis and characterization of carbohydrate reagents, which were subsequently employed for the onestep, solution-based modification of carbon, metals, and alloys with monosaccharides. We used a combination of spectroscopic and nanogravimetric methods to characterize the structure of the carbohydrate layers; we report an average surface coverage of 7.8 × 10 −10 mol cm −2 under our experimental conditions. Concanavalin A, a mannose-binding lectin, and Peanut Agglutinin, a galactose-binding lectin, were found to bind from solution to their respective monosaccharide binding partners immobilized at the surface. This result suggests that the spontaneous chemisorption of aryldiazonium monosaccharide precursors leads to the formation of monosaccharide layers that retain the biological recognition specificity of the parent carbohydrate molecule. Finally, we carried out measurements using fluorescently labeled Bovine Serum Albumin (BSA) and found that these carbohydrate coatings reduce unspecific adsorption of this protein at carbon surfaces. These results suggest that aryldiazonium-derived carbohydrate coatings may offer a promising strategy for preventing undesirable protein accumulation onto surfaces.

Aryldiazonium cations are widely used to covalently functionalize carbon substrates that display a wide range of composition, from 100% sp2 such as graphite or graphene to 100% sp3 such as diamond and nanodiamond. In this work we investigated the effect that changes in carbon composition have on aryldiazonium adsorption rates and surface reaction mechanism. Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) was used to investigate the rates of adsorption in situ and in real time at two amorphous carbon substrates, one with high sp2 content (a-C) and one with high sp3 content (a-C:H). A reversible Langmuir adsorption model was found to satisfactorily describe adsorption at a-C:H, yielding an adsorption rate coefficient k a = 3.1 M–1 s–1 and a free energy of adsorption ΔG a = −20.1 kJ mol–1. This model, on the other hand, could not be applied for the interpretation of adsorption curves at a-C. Using electrochemical methods and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), we found that adlayers formed at a-C:H and a-C surfaces differ considerably in composition; in particular, a-C surfaces were found to display higher rates of dediazoniation with respect to a-C:H surfaces. Our findings are interpreted and discussed in the context of current proposed mechanisms for aryldiazonium reactions at surfaces that consist of an adsorption/desorption step followed by a chemisorption via dediazoniation step. Our observations are consistent with proposed mechanisms and strongly suggest that differences in carbon composition result in differences in the relative magnitude of adsorption and chemisorptions rate coefficients.

Abnormal levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine have been linked to a variety of neurochemical disorders including depression and Parkinson's disease. Dopamine concentrations are often quantified electrochemically using biosensors prepared from carbon electrode materials such as carbon paste or glassy carbon. The charge transfer kinetics of dopamine are highly sensitive to carbon surface termination, including the presence of certain oxygen functional groups and adsorption sites. However, the nature of the binding sites and the effects of surface oxidation on the voltammetry of dopamine are both poorly understood.In this work the electrochemical response of dopamine at glassy carbon model surfaces was investigated to understand the effects of altering both the carbon nanostructure and oxygen surface chemistry on dopamine charge transfer kinetics and adsorption. Glassy carbon electrodes with low oxygen content and a high degree of surface graphitisation were prepared via thermal annealing at 900 o C, whilst highly oxidised glassy carbon electrodes were obtained through electrochemical anodisation at 1.8 V vs Ag/AgCl. The carbon surface structure and composition in each case was studied via X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy.Voltammetry in solutions of dopamine at acidic pH confirmed that both annealing and anodisation treatments result in carbon surfaces with rapid charge transfer kinetics. However, dopamine adsorption occurs only at the low-oxygen, highly-graphitized carbon surface.Density functional theory studies on graphene model surfaces reveal that this behaviour is due to non-covalent interactions between the π-system of dopamine and the basal sites in the annealed surface. Simulations also show that the introduction of oxygen moieties disrupt these interactions and inhibit dopamine adsorption, in agreement with experiments. The results clarify the role of oxygen moieties and basal plane sites in facilitating both the adsorption of and charge transfer to DA at carbon electrodes.