UV-Visible Reflectance Spectroscopy

Within the last two decades, interfacial electrochemistry has become very much an integral part of modern surface science.(1–6) In the search for a microscopic description of the electrochemical double layer, which obviously is necessary for a detailed understanding of electrode processes, electrochemists have increasingly recognized the potential power of surface science concepts and techniques for obtaining information which would complement the thermodynamic description derived from classical electrochemical methods. As a consequence, (1) new, nonelectrochemical techniques have been introduced and combined with the traditional electrochemical methods, (2) atomically well-defined single-crystal surfaces have been increasingly used as electrodes rather than polycrystalline material, and (3) structure-sensitive methods such as low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), developed for surface characterization under ultrahigh-vacuum conditions, have been employed to study electrode surfaces before and after electrochemical experiments.(4,5) In addition, atomistic concepts for interactions at surfaces have been introduced from surface science into electrochemistry to modify or replace the macroscopic and highly phenomenological models of the electrochemical double layer, which were developed from the analysis of thermodynamic data.