You might be interested in will definitely be interested in the following papers:
- If you’re interested in building the best possible vibrationally resonant SFG spectrometer you should be reading — and committing to memory 🙂 – the recent effort of Tobias and Martin. This is their Solomonic demonstration that usual trade-offs between noncollinear and collinear geometries need not be made: it is possible to have it all.
- An increasing number of studies have shown that most real (electro)catalytic materials are heterogeneous and that this heterogeneity typically develops under working conditions. One consequence of this state of affairs is that any attempt to understand the mechanism of catalytic reactions requires experimental tools that allow imaging of reactivity. In Gregor’s recent paper at ACS Catalysis he shows how this can be done at a polycrystalline Au electrode for the production of oxygen from water splitting using a wide-field second harmonic microscope. The study — in collaboration with the wonderful folks from Syvie Roke’s group at EPFL — suggests that reactivity is astonishingly local: less that 1 % of the electrode surface area is responsible for the production of all oxygen under moderately oxidizing conditions.
- While we are great believers in the power of nonlinear optical spectroscopy sometimes optical detection is challenging. It turns out, as François and Yujin have shown in a recent preprint for the case of the solvated electron at the Au/water interface, that for those cases electrical detection, following optical stimulus may be just the ticket.