Phase-sensitive sum frequency revealing accommodation of bicarbonate ions, and charge separation of sodium and carbonate ions within the air/water interface.

Interfacial water structure plays a key role in many chemical, biological, and environmental processes. Here, in addition to conventional VSFG, we employ phase-sensitive sum frequency generation (PS-SFG) to investigate the average direction of the transition dipole of interfacial water molecules that is intrinsically contained in the sign of the second-order nonlinear susceptibility, χ((2)). The orientation of water at air/aqueous inorganic salt interfaces of Na(2)CO(3) and NaHCO(3) was inferred from the direct measurement of the transition dipole moment of the interfacial water molecules. It is found that bicarbonate and its counterion sodium do not significantly perturb the interfacial water structure, whereas carbonate strongly orients water so that the water hydrogens point down toward the bulk solution. This is consistent with the picture of carbonate anions residing many layers below the water surface with a preference for the sodium cations to be above the anions and thereby closer to the topmost layer of the water surface.