ETHANOL ADSORPTION AND DESORPTION ON SILVER SURFACE PROBED BY OPTICAL SECOND-HARMONIC GENERATION

Abstract

Publisher Summary The potentiality of nonlinear optical techniques used for surface and interface studies has been explored and reviewed in recent years. Among which, the optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) is the most developed and employed arts. Due to its surface specific characteristics, the experimental investigations could be simplified. One of the most interesting fields on the application of SHG as the surface probe is the study of adsorption and desorption of atoms and molecules with the studied surface to be situated under an ultrahigh vacuum environment for keeping the surface clean from contaminations. This chapter discusses the adsorption and desorption of ethanol on a polycrystalline silver surface probed by SHG. The reason for choosing ethanol as the adsorbate is based not only on its adsorption on silver but also because ethanol could be adsorbed either in a physisorbed state or in a chemisorbed state, which depends on the environmental conditions of the studied surface met. Such a characteristic provides a benefit to study whether SHG could be so sensitive to differentiate these two states of adsorption.