Potential modulation of equilibrium and excitation phenomena at the electrolyte-solid interface

Technical Report · Tue Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6250728· OSTI ID:6250728

Furtak, T E

This progress report covers the work accomplished from the beginning of Sept. 1990, through Sept. 1991. This includes the final portion of the last funding period as well as the first 7 months of the new period. During this time we have pursued our goal of studying the role of the interfacial potential difference in determining the ground and excited electronic sates of the electrolyte-solid system. Ours is program designed to provide fundamental information about this complicated environment. We seek to improve the techniques with which electrochemical interfaces can be studied and thereby observe details which have never before been measured. We are primarily concerned with optical techniques, but have also integrated conventional and non-conventional supplementary methods. We have developed the technique of optical second harmonic generation into a spectroscopy by performing the experiment with a wide range of nearly continuous incident photon energies. Through this advantage we have performed detailed tests of the interfacial potential as derived through local density functional methods in the jellium limit. Our data show that the theory is reasonably satisfactory when the surface is electron deficient. However, when the surface is negatively charged (electron excess) significant discrepancies are evident. At least part of this deviation has been explained by transitions involving potential modulated surface states. This project has helped clarify some important questions concerning the nonlinear optical properties of metals, as well as lay he ground work for future applications aimed at monitoring adsorption phenomena with optical second harmonic reflectance spectroscopy.

• Research Organization: Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States). Dept. of Physics
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-86ER45253
• OSTI ID: 6250728
• Report Number(s): DOE/ER/45253-6; ON: DE92003453
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
ELECTRODES
INTERFACES
ELECTROLYTES
EXCITED STATES
GROUND STATES
MICROBALANCES
PROGRESS REPORT
SAMPLE PREPARATION
SILVER
SPECTROSCOPY
BALANCES
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELEMENTS
ENERGY LEVELS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
METALS
TRANSITION ELEMENTS
WEIGHT INDICATORS
400400* - Electrochemistry