Enhanced Sensitivity in Single-Reflection Spectroscopy of Organic Monolayers on Metal Substrates (Pseudo-ATR)

The present work demonstrates that the observed intensity of an infrared spectrum of a thin film or monolayer on a metal substrate can be increased an order of magnitude by using attenuated total reflection (ATR) instrumentation with a single reflection (pseudo-ATR). The intensities of signal peaks in the pseudo-ATR IR spectrum of a sample of n- octadecane-1-thiol- d 37 on gold exceed by an order of magnitude those in a spectrum taken using traditional grazing angle specular reflectance. The reproducibility of the two spectra is comparable.