Liquid interfaces : role of the fluctuations and analysis of ellipsometry and reflectivity measurements

Abstract

It is shown that the difficulties which appear in the interpretation of optical properties of liquid interfaces disappear when we develop a coupled mode theory of thermal interfacial fluctuations. First, we are able to calculate the optical properties of critical interfaces with only macroscopic non adjustable parameters. Secondly, we can deduce the rigidity constant at any length scale of monolayers from ellipsometric measurements. The persistence lengths of monolayers that we deduce are in perfect agreement with the phase structures we observe.