Abstract

Recently, it has been demonstrated that optical second-harmonic generation (SHG) can be used to study molecular adsorbates at an interface between two media with inversion symmetry.¹ A question, however, arises as to how sensitive the SHG technique is to small molecular adsorbates and how well it correlates with or supplements the existing tools for surface studies. We report here the first known application of the SHG technique to well-characterized surface systems that are also of catalytic importance.

© 1984 Optical Society of America