Sawtooth-like oscillatory forces generated by water molecules confined between two oxidized silicon surfaces were observed using a cantilever-based optical interfacial force microscope when the two surfaces approached each other in ambient environments. The humidity-dependent oscillatory amplitude and periodicity were 3-12 nN and 3-4 water diameters, respectively. Half of each period was matched with a freely jointed chain model, possibly suggesting that the confined water behaved like a bundle of water chains. The analysis also indicated that water molecules self-assembled to form chain-like structures in a nanoscopic meniscus between two hydrophilic surfaces in air. From the friction force data measured simultaneously, the viscosity of the chain-like water was estimated to be between 10 8 and 10 10 times greater than that of bulk water. The suggested chain-like structure resolves many unexplained properties of confined water at the nanometer scale, thus dramatically improving the understanding of a variety of water systems in nature.

We developed a cantilever based optical interfacial force microscopy (COIFM) that employs a microactuated silicon cantilever and optical detection method to establish the measurement of the single molecular interactions using the force feedback technique. Through the direct measurement of the COIFM force-distance curves, we have demonstrated that the COIFM is capable of unveiling structural and mechanical information on interfacial water at the single molecular level over all distances between two hydrophilic surfaces.

We measured normal and friction forces simultaneously using a recently developed cantilever-based optical interfacial force microscope technique for studies of interfacial structures and mechanical properties of nanoscale materials. We derived how the forces can be incorporated into the detection signal using the classical Euler equation for beams. A lateral modulation with the amplitude of nanometers was applied to create the friction forces between tip and sample. We demonstrated its capability by measuring normal and friction forces of interfacial water at the molecular scale over all distance ranges.