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Updated: Apr 14, 2026

Interfacial Molecular-level Structures of Polymers and Biomacromolecules Revealed via Sum Frequency Generation Vibrational Spectroscopy
Published on: August 13, 2019
Surface sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy of nonpolar media
Shumei Sun1, Chuanshan Tian2, Y Ron Shen3
1Department of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, and Key Laboratory of Micro- and Nano-Photonic Structures, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China;
Abstract:
Sum-frequency generation spectroscopy is surface specific only if the bulk contribution to the signal is negligible. Negligible bulk contribution is, however, not necessarily true, even for media with inversion symmetry. The inevitable challenge is to find the surface spectrum in the presence of bulk contribution, part of which has been believed to be inseparable from the surface contribution. Here, we show that, for nonpolar media, it is possible to separately deduce surface and bulk spectra from combined phase-sensitive sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopic measurements in reflection and transmission. The study of benzene interfaces is presented as an example.
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