Second harmonic generation and sum frequency generation

Second harmonic generation and sum frequency generation are increasingly being used as in situ surface probes. These techniques are coherent and inherently surface sensitive by the nature of the mediums response to intense laser light. Here we will review these two techniques using aqueous corrosion as an example problem. Aqueous corrosion of technologically important materials such as Fe, Ni and Cr proceeds from a reduced metal surface with layer by layer growth of oxide films mitigated by compositional changes in the chemical makeup of the growing film. Passivation of the metal surface is achieved after growth of only a few tens of atomic layers of metal oxide. Surface Second Harmonic Generation and a related nonlinear laser technique, Sum Frequency Generation have demonstrated an ability to probe the surface composition of growing films even in the presence of aqueous solutions.