Electrochemistry and Optical Microscopy

TL;DR

This paper reviews how optical microscopy techniques can be used for high-resolution, non-destructive, in situ imaging of electrochemical processes, offering an alternative to traditional electrochemical imaging methods.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of optical properties, microscopy methods, and recent in situ imaging examples for electrochemical research.

Findings

Optical microscopy can image electrochemical processes at micro- to nanometer resolution.

Optical methods enable non-destructive, real-time analysis of electrochemical phenomena.

Examples include imaging solution diffusion and molecular interface conversions.

Abstract

Electrochemistry exploits local current heterogeneities at various scales ranging from the micrometer to the nanometer. The last decade has witnessed unprecedented progress in the development of a wide range of electroanalytical techniques allowing to reveal and quantify such heterogeneity through multiscale and multifonctionnal operando probing of electrochemical processes. However most of these advanced electrochemical imaging techniques, employing scanning probes, suffer from either low imaging throughput or limited imaging size. In parallel, optical microscopies, which can image a wide field of view in a single snapshot, have made considerable progress in terms of sensitivity, resolution and implementation of detection modes. Optical microscopies are then mature enough to propose, with basic bench equipment, to probe in a non destructive way a wide range of optical (and therefore structural) properties of a material in situ, in real time: under operating conditions. They offer promising alternative strategies for quantitative high-resolution imaging of electrochemistry. The first sections recall the optical properties of materials and how they can be probed optically. They discuss fluorescence, Raman, surface plasmon resonance, scattering or refractive index. Then the different optical microscopes used to image electrochemical processes are examined along with some strategies to extract quantitative electrochemical information from optical images. Finally the last section reviews some examples of in situ imaging, at micro- to nanometer resolution, and quantification of electrochemical processes ranging from solution diffusion to the conversion of molecular interfaces or solids.