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Updated: Oct 19, 2025

Author Spotlight: Unveiling the Potential of VSFG Microscopy in Studying Mesoscopically Heterogeneous Self-Assembled Structures
Published on: December 1, 2023
Direct Evidence for a Surface and Bulk Specific Response in the Sum-Frequency Generation Spectrum of the Water Bend
C J Moll1, J Versluis1, H J Bakker1
1AMOLF, Ultrafast Spectroscopy, Science Park 104, 1098XG Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Abstract:
We study the bending mode of pure water and charged aqueous surfaces using heterodyne-detected vibrational sum-frequency generation spectroscopy. We observe a low (1626 cm^{-1}) and a high (1656 cm^{-1}) frequency component that can be unambiguously assigned to an interfacial dipole and a bulk quadrupolar response, respectively. We thus demonstrate that probing the bending mode provides structural and quantitative information on both the surface and the bulk.
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