Abstract
It has proven to be a challenging task to quantitatively resolve the interfacial profile at diffuse interfaces, such as, the adsorption profilenear a bulk binary liquid mixture critical point. In this contribution we examine the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of experimental techniques for studying adsorption, including neutron reflectometry, X-ray reflectometry and ellipsometry. Short length scale interfacial features arebest resolved using neutron/X-ray reflectometry, whereas, large length scale interfacial features are best resolved using ellipsometry, or in special circumstances, neutron reflectometry. The use of multiple techniques severely limits the shape of the adsorption profile that can describe all experimental data sets. Complex interfaces possessing surface features on many different length scales are therefore best studied using a combination of neutron/X-ray reflectometry and ellipsometry.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 127-132 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | European Physical Journal: Special Topics |
| Volume | 167 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2009 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was partially supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through Grant No. DE-FG02-02ER46020 and the U.S. National Science Foundation through Grant No. DMR-0603144.