The Quartz Crystal Microbalance in Soft Matter Research

This book describes the physics of the second-generation quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), a fundamental method of analysis for soft matter at interfaces.

From a device for measuring film thickness in vacuum, the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) has in the past two decades evolved into a versatile instrument for analyzing soft matter at solid/liquid and solid/gas interfaces that found applications in diverse fields including the life sciences, material science, polymer research and electrochemistry. As a consequence of this success, the QCM is now being used by scientists with a wide variety of backgrounds to study an impressive diversity of samples, with intricate data analysis methods being elaborated along the way. It is for these practitioners of the QCM that the book is written. It brings across basic principles behind the technique and the data analysis methods in sufficient detail to be educational and in a format that is accessible to anyone with an undergraduate level knowledge of any of the physical or natural sciences. These principles concern the analysis of acoustic shear waves and build on a number of fundamental physical concepts which many users of the technique do not usually come across. They have counterparts in optical spectroscopy, electrical engineering, quantum mechanics, rheology and mechanics, making this book a useful educational resource beyond the QCM itself. The main focus is the physics of QCM, but as the book describes the behavior of the QCM when exposed to films, droplets, polymer brushes, particles, vesicles, nanobubbles and stick-slip, it also offers insight into the behavior of soft matter at interfaces in a more general sense.

Prof. Dr. Diethelm Johannsmann, born 1962, received his physics education in Bonn and Heidelberg. From 1988 to 1991 he worked on his PhD thesis at the Max-Planck-Institute (MPI) for polymer research, Mainz, Germany and subsequently became a postdoc at the UC Berkeley, USA. After 2 years he joined the MPI for polymer research again, now as a member of the scientific staff. As of 2002 he is associate professor and teaches physical chemistry at Clausthal University of Technology, Germany.

His research interests encompass acoustic resonators, soft matter at interfaces, polymer surfaces and polymer films, novel sensing schemes and contact mechanics.

He has contributed to QCM-based research over the past 25 years with more than 50 publications and is an acknowledged expert in the field.