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Science 12 March 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5408, pp. 1727 - 1730
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5408.1727
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Reports

How Strong Is a Covalent Bond?

Michel Grandbois, 1 Martin Beyer, 2 Matthias Rief, 13 Hauke Clausen-Schaumann, 1 Hermann E. Gaub 1*

The rupture force of single covalent bonds under an external load was measured with an atomic force microscope (AFM). Single polysaccharide molecules were covalently anchored between a surface and an AFM tip and then stretched until they became detached. By using different surface chemistries for the attachment, it was found that the silicon-carbon bond ruptured at 2.0 ± 0.3 nanonewtons, whereas the sulfur-gold anchor ruptured at 1.4 ± 0.3 nanonewtons at force-loading rates of 10 nanonewtons per second. Bond rupture probability calculations that were based on density functional theory corroborate the measured values.

1 Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Amalienstrasse 54, D-80799 München, Germany.
2 Institut für Physikalische und Theoretische Chemie, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstrasse 4, 85748 Garching, Germany.
3 Department of Biochemistry B400, School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-5307, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)