RECENT ADVANCES IN THE STUDY OF CHEMICAL SURFACES AND INTERFACES BY SPECULAR NEUTRON REFLECTION

The use of specular neutron reflection to study a wide variety of prob lems in surface and interfacial chemistry is introduced and discussed. Recent developments in neutron reflectometry instrumentation, and the ir implementation in the design of the SURF reflectometer at the ISIS pulsed neutron source, are described. The design of the SURF reflectom eter has been optimised for the surface chemistry of soft matter and n ew experimental results that exploit the novel features of this second generation neutron reflectometer are presented and discussed in the c ontext of the opportunities for future studies that the technique and the new instrumentation presents. The examples from the broad programm e in surface chemistry include surfactant and polymer adsorption at th e air/liquid and liquid/solid interfaces, adsorption at the liquid/liq uid interface; Langmuir-Blodgett films and liquid crystalline alignmen t layers, thin solid polymer films and interfaces; liquid mixtures and in situ electrochemistry.