Glancing Incidence External Reflection Spectroelectrochemistry with a Continuum Source

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ac50062a025

A previous report demonstrated that light reflected from an electrode at small angles could be used to make optical absorption measurements on electrogenerated chromophores.A large sensitivity enhancement over previous method was realized due to the relatively long effective path length.The present report discussed the extension of the technique to carbon and platinum electrodes and the use of continuum rather than laser light source.For all combinations of source and electrode, the sensitivity of the method is about 100 times that of a comparable experiment using an optically transparent electrode, and the magnitude of the enhancement can be calculated from geometric considerations.In addition, the effect of the beam entering the side of the diffusion layer was cosidered, and it was found that this effect can be neglected if the experiment is designed properly.