Functionalized nanoparticles in aqueous surroundings probed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
In this paper we present the first core-level photoelectron spectroscopic study of solid nanoparticles in liquid water. The particles are SiO2-based with an average diameter of 70 nm and functionalized with carboxylic groups. Despite that the sample is very dilute, we show that it is possible to obtain reasonable photoemission signal containing chemical information about both the ligands and the o
