Watching Electrochemical Interfaces in Motion with High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy

Electrochemical processes involve transient phenomena, including nucleation and growth, phase transformations, dissolution, ion transport, and interfacial restructuring, which are difficult to capture simultaneously at nanoscale and in real time under electrochemical controls. High-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM), originally developed for dynamic biological imaging, combines nanometer-scale spatial resolution with frame times of approximately 0.1–5 s/frame, extending into the subsecond regime, enabling direct visualization of electrochemical interfaces under operando conditions. This perspective highlights emerging applications of HS-AFM in electrochemistry, including electrodeposition, nanoparticle dissolution, corrosion, lithiation-induced morphological evolution, protein adsorption, and nanobubble dynamics. HS-AFM reveals that mechanistic insight often resides in transient, nonequilibrium pathways rather than equilibrium structures alone. Advances will enable real-time nanoscale correlation of interfacial structure, kinetics, and electrochemical function.