Molecular orientation study of methylene blue at an air/fused-silica interface using evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy.

Using evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS), we monitored the change in the absorbance of a thin film of methylene blue (MB) at an air/fused-silica interface while varying the polarization of the incident light (600 nm). We derived the average orientation angle of the planar MB molecules with respect to the surface normal and observed that the average orientation angle decreases as the surface concentration increases. At low surface concentrations, the MB molecules lie almost flat on the surface, whereas at higher surface concentrations the molecules become vertically oriented.