Izabella Brand - Application of Polarization Modulation Infrared Reflection Absorption Spectroscopy in Electrochemistry

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Electrochemists have always dreamed of seeing what happens on the electrode surface. This dream became true in the second half of the twentieth century: ex situ and in situ spectroscopic techniques and surface probe techniques (AFM, STM, Kelvin probe) have been developed. Among the spectroscopies, infrared techniques play a special role as they allow to see what chemical species are on the electrode surface and how they are oriented. Izabella Brand is very experienced in developing and applying polarization modulation infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy in electrochemistry. This monograph reflects both her deep theoretical understanding and her excellent experimental skills. I am sure that it will stay a most important reference book for everybody who will apply this technique in his own research.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to my teachers who inspired in my scientific career.

I am very thankful to Prof. Dr. Renata Bilewicz, supervisor of my Ph.D. thesis. Her inspiration to the electrochemical examination of electrodes modified by organized molecular films has become an important part of my research activities.

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Prof. Dr. Jacek Lipkowski, from whom I learnt how to apply electrochemistry to infrared spectroscopy techniques. I thank him for numerous scientific discussions and advices which I received over the course of many years. The combination of surface modification techniques with spectroelectrochemistry opened new research areas for me, in particular in the field of bioelectrochemistry.

I am very thankful to Prof. Dr. Gunther Wittstock for the received support during the introduction of polarization modulation infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy with electrochemical control at the University of Oldenburg. I benefited from numerous discussions with him, which in an elegant way combined constructive criticism with enthusiasm in research.

A significant part of the results described in this monograph could not have been realized without team work and collaborations. I am very thankful to Prof. Dr. Vlad Zamlynny for the maintenance of scientific contact and discussions, in particular about polarization modulation infrared reflection-absorption spectroscopy. I would like to thank him for sharing with me OpticalConstants and Fresnel computation programs. I would like to thank Prof. Bernhard Gollas, Prof. Jacek Lipkowski, Prof. Elena Baranova, and Dr. Saustin Dongmo for providing me figures, which I reproduced in this monograph. I would like to thank my Ph.D., M.Sc. students and visitors to our research group for their experimental work and data analysis. I would like to acknowledge their enthusiasm, dedication to work, and valuable discussions of experimental results as well as planning of new experiments. I acknowledge the German Science Foundation (DFG) for financial support, which I have received in the last years. Parts of Chaps. describe results obtained during the realization of DFG research projects.

I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Fritz Scholz, the editor of the Monographs in Electrochemistry series, for his invitation to write this monograph. I am thankful for the support, encouragement, and comments I received from him during the writing process.