SCAN-Lab Technical Notes 23: The production and use of glass capillaries for Scanning Droplet Cell (SDC) measurements

Introduction

In the Scanning Droplet Cell (SDC; also known as Scanning Droplet System, SDS) measurement the electrochemical cell is confined to a droplet formed between the SDC probe and the sample of interest. The sample acts as the working electrode in the droplet cell, while the probe contains the counter and reference electrodes. SDC can be used to perform highly localized electrochemical or impedance measurements, or local sample activity can be mapped by raster scanning the probe with a single dc bias with or without an ac component applied. While the SDS470 is supplied with two specially designed SDC heads, pulled glass capillary can also be used for SDC. Although such capillaries need to be tailor made at time of use, they can be made to smaller dimensions than the standard SDC heads to achieve higher resolution measurements. This note outlines how capillary probes can be used to perform SDC measurements on the M470.

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