The interfaces of neat water and aqueous solutions play a prominent role in many technological processes and in the environment. Examples of aqueous interfaces are ultrathin water films that cover most hydrophilic surfaces under ambient relative humidities, the liquid/solid interface which drives many electrochemical reactions, and the liquid/vapor interface, which governs the uptake and release of trace gases by the oceans and cloud droplets. In this article we review some of the recent experimental and theoretical advances in our knowledge of the properties of aqueous interfaces and discuss open questions and gaps in our understanding.

We demonstrate that adsorbed meso-tetraphenylporphyrin molecules can coordinate Zn atoms that are pre-deposited on an Ag(111) surface, forming a complex that is identical to directly deposited tetraphenylporphyrinato-zinc(II); this reaction, which we studied with XPS, is the first example of an oxidative dissolution of a metal by a large organic ligand under ultrahigh vacuum conditions.

Beam me up: A novel two‐step process allows iron nanostructures to be generated locally on SiOx/Si at 300 K. The surface is first locally activated by an electron beam. Then the activated structures are exposed to [Fe(CO)5], which decomposes and grows autocatalytically to give pure Fe nanocrystals.

Surface-active organic molecules at the liquid-vapor interface are of great importance in atmospheric science. Therefore, we studied the surface behavior of alcohol isomers with different chain lengths (C4-C6) in aqueous solution with surfaceand chemically sensitive X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), which reveals information about the surface structure on a molecular level. Gibbs free energies of adsorption and surface concentrations are determined from the XPS results using a standard Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. The free energies of adsorption, ranging from around -15 to -19 kJ/mol (C4-C6), scale linearly with the number of carbon atoms within the alcohols with ΔGAds per -CH2-≈ -2 kJ/mol. While for the linear alcohols, surface concentrations lie around 2.4 x 10 14 molecules/cm 2 at the bulk concentrations where monolayers are formed, the studied branched alcohols show lower surface concentrations of around 1.6 x 10 14 molecules/cm 2 , both of which are in line with the molecular structure and their orientation at the interface. Interestingly, we find that there is a maximum in the surface enrichment factor for linear alcohols at low concentrations, which is not observed for the shorter branched alcohols. This is interpreted in terms of a cooperative effect, which we suggest to be the result of more effective van der Waals interactions between the linear alcohol alkyl chains at the aqueous surface, making it energetically even more favorable to reside at the liquid-vapor interface.

Dedicated to Professor Theo Mayer-Kuckuk on the occasion of his 60th birthday Differential cross sections of e-elastic scattering have been measured for the target nuclei XlB, 12C, 13C, 14N, lSN, and 160 at E=48.7 and 54.1 MeV and for the nuclei 170, 180, and 2~ at E=54.1 MeV. The experimental results were analysed in terms of the optical model using different complex potentials. Special emphasis is given to the application of the double-folding approach for the real part of the potential. The imaginary part is expressed in terms of Fourier-Bessel functions. Differential cross sections for the e-160 scattering over a wide energy range and for the elastic e-scattering for nuclei in the mass range A=ll up to A=24 at E=54.1MeV are analysed by this method. A close correlation between the absorptive part of the potential and nuclear deformation is observed.