Main description:

Electrified interfaces span from metaVsemiconductor and metaVelectrolyte interfaces to disperse systems and biological membranes, and are notably important in so many physical, chemical and biological systems that their study has been tackled by researchers with different scientific backgrounds using different methodological approaches. The various electrified interfaces have several common features. The equilibrium distribution of positive and negative ions in an electrolytic solution is governed by the same Poisson-Boltzmann equation independent of whether the solution comes into contact with a metal, a colloidal particle or a biomembrane, and the same is true for the equilibrium distribution of free electrons and holes of a semiconductor in contact with a different conducting phase. Evaluation of electric potential differences across biomembranes is based on the same identity of electrochemical potentials which holds for a glass electrode and which yields the Nernst equation when applied to a metal/solution interface. The theory of thermally activated electron tunneling, which was developed by Marcus, Levich, Dogonadze and others to account for electron transfer across metaVelectrolyte interfaces, is also applied to light induced charge separation and proton translocation reactions across intercellular membranes. From an experimental viewpoint, the same electrochemical and in situ spectroscopic techniques can equally well be employed for the study of apparently quite different electrified interfaces.

Contents:

An overview of electrified interfaces.- Structure and electronic properties of metal surfaces.- Physics of Surfaces.- Ab-Initio Molecular Dynamics: Selected Applications to Disordered Systems and Surfaces.- The Problem of Schottky Barrier.- The Semiconductor/Electrolyte Interface.- Stark Effect on Adsorbates at Electrified Interfaces.- Thermodynamics of Adsorption.- Electrode Potentials and Energy Scales.- Phenomenological Approach to Metal/Electrolyte Interfaces.- The Application of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy to Electrochemistry.- Single Crystal Electrodes.- Modeling of Metal-Water Electrified Interfaces.- Molecular Models of Organic Adsorption from Water at Charged Interfaces.- The Interface Between a Metal and a Solution in the Absence of Specific Adsorption.- Adsorption at the MetaVSolution Interface.- Electron-Transfer Reactions at Metal-Solution Interfaces: an Introduction to Some Contemporary Issues.- The Solid-Electrolyte Interface as Exemplified by Hydrous Oxides; Surface Chemistry and Surface Reactivity.- Discrete Charges on Biological Membranes.- Structural Rearrangements in Lipid Bilayer Membranes.- Evaluation of the Surface Potential at the Membrane-Solution Interface of Photosynthetic Bacterial Systems.- Electrical Currents of the Light Driven Pump Bacteriorhodopsin. The Role of Asp 85 and Asp 96 on Proton Translocation.- The Electrochemical Relaxation at Thylakoid Membranes.- Evaluation of the Electric Field in a Protein by Dynamic Measurements of Proton Transfer.- List of Participants.- List of Contributors.