Ky. Lee et al., DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF THE SPATIAL DAMPING OF CAPILLARY WAVES AT LIQUID-VAPOR INTERFACES, Journal of physical chemistry, 97(49), 1993, pp. 12876-12878
We measured the spatial damping of low-frequency surface waves at air-
water interfaces using a novel heterodyne light-scattering technique.
For pure water the measured damping agrees well with linear hydrodynam
ic theory. For interfaces covered with a monolayer of pentadecanoic ac
id, we find a 5-fold increase in damping at a surface concentration of
2.2 molecules nm-2, near the high-density end of the gas/liquid-expan
ded coexistence region. The behavior of the damping as a function of s
urface concentration cannot be explained by existing theories.