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Temporally Anticorrelated Subdiffusion in Water Nanofilms on Silica Suggests Near-Surface Viscoelasticity

We used single-molecule tracking to probe the local rheology of interfacial water. Fluorescent rhodamine molecules were tracked on silica surfaces as a function of ambient relative humidity, which controlled the thickness of condensed water nanofilms. At low humidity, the molecules exhibited confined diffusion in the vicinity of isolated adsorption sites characterized by a broad distribution of binding stiffness constants; subsequent chemical or physical surface passivation selectively eliminated stiffer binding sites. At increased humidity, molecularly thin water films condensed, permitting near-surface transport of rhodamine molecules. Motion was subdiffusive, with an anomalous exponent increasing with the nanofilm thickness. Molecular trajectories were temporally anticorrelated, ergodic, but also featured transient binding and intermittent diffusion. Statistical modeling demonstrated that this complex motion in water nanofilms had the characteristics of fractional Brownian motion combined with a continuous time random walk. This was consistent with diffusion within viscoelastic nanofilms, suggesting persistent molecular structuring in the vicinity of the silica surface.