Salt is a commonly used substance in daily life, and people are interested in understanding how it dissolves and what the mechanism behind it is. Recently, a breakthrough research study was published in the international academic journal "Nature Comm

The research team, led by Professor Ding Feng from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Professor Shin Hyung-jun from the University of Ulsan, has developed a "single ion control technology" that allows them to observe the dissolution process of salt at the atomic level for the first time. This achievement provides a new perspective for understanding the behavior of charged atoms (ions) in solutions and could have significant implications for the development of new materials in various applications such as batteries and semiconductors. Traditionally, the behavior of ions in solution could only be measured in terms of their average characteristics, without the ability to observe the behavior of individual ions. Scientists have made many efforts in the past but have been unable to observe the atomic process of salt dissolution in water. To overcome this challenge, the joint Chinese-Korean research team deposited individual water molecules on a thin salt film with a thickness of only 2 to 3 atomic layers at an extremely low temperature of -268.8℃. They used a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) with atomic-level resolution to precisely control the movement of water molecules and observe the dissolution process of individual chloride ions in salt. The research team discovered that by precisely controlling the position and movement of water molecules, significant diffe...