New Technique for Determining the Optical Constants of Liquids

Abstract

The traditional techniques of transmission and attenuated total reflectance (ATR) spectroscopy for determining the optical constants of liquids are not practical or reliable for very strong absorption bands. Specular reflectance can be used in these cases, but for volatile liquids it is impossible to separate the reflectance spectrum of the liquid from the absorption spectrum of the vapor above the liquid. Methods using special cells have been described in the literature to prevent the liquid from evaporating. In this paper, a similar technique that makes use of traditional transmission cells is presented. It is shown that this new technique generates k(ν˜) spectra for strong absorption bands that are accurate to approximately 2%.