ABSTRACT
Surface physicochemical processes such as molecular grafting, adsorption or diffusion are of paramount importance in surface science. A full comprehension of such processes requires characterizing them, ideally operando, at high temporal and spatial resolution. Scanning electrochemical microscope (SECM) is a noninvasive technique ideal for such investigations that can overcome the limited spatial resolution of the classical electrochemical methods. For the past two decades, its use in the field of surface reactions has continuously increased as it can deeply examine physicochemical properties at both conductive and insulating surfaces.
This chapter presents the significant progresses of SECM, and the emergence of derived techniques such as the scanning electrochemical cell microscopy (SECCM) and the scanning ion conductance microscopy (SICM), to characterize organic and inorganic film-modified surfaces as well as surface reactions. It is shown through numbers of examples how the various SECM methodologies often coupled to numerical simulations can quantitatively analyze these processes with the ability to reach resolutions down to a few tens of nanometers.
