Invited Paper BI-WeA8
Nonlinear Light Scattering: Bridging the Gap between Surface Science & Soft Matter

Wednesday, October 22, 2008, 4:00 pm, Room 202

Interfaces play a key role in many processes. They play a regulating role in transport and structural phenomena in biological cells, they can determine the chemistry and (phase) behavior of colloidal systems, they are important for the mechanical properties of (amorphous) solids and they determine the electrical properties of micro- and nano-electronics. When the size of materials decreases down to the level of micro- or nano-structures, the relative interfacial area increases. For small systems it is well-known that the interfacial region becomes a dominating factor in determining the physical and chemical properties of a material. Thermodynamically, on a macroscopic level, the effect of an interface region is well understood. On a molecular level, however, it is not. In this presentation I will introduce vibrational sum frequency scattering as a novel method to investigate particle and domain interfaces,¹ highlight new possibilities that become available and show some of the latest developments. These include: the possibility of investigating molecular surface effects in colloidal phase transitions,^2,3 how to extract molecular properties⁴ and the possibility of observing embedded domain structures in polymorph materials.⁵

¹ - S. Roke, W. G. Roeterdink, J. E. G. J. Wijnhoven, A. V. Petukhov, A. W. Kleyn and M. Bonn, Phys. Rev. Lett., 91 (2003), 258302-1.
² - S. Roke, J. Buitenhuis, M. Bonn and A. Van Blaaderen, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter., 17 (2005), S3469-S3475.
³ - S. Roke, J. Buitenhuis, A. van Blaaderen and M. Bonn, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci, 103 (2006), 13310-13314.
⁴ - A. G. F. de Beer and S. Roke, Phys. Rev. B, 75 (2007), 245438-1-8.
⁵ - A. G. F. de Beer, H. B. de Aguiar, J. F. W. Nijsen, A. B. Sugiharto and S. Roke, submitted.