Thermal lensing and electron-probe microanalysis were used for studying surfaces of quartz glass samples with chemically bonded Reactivrot B5A organic dye. The possibility of using both methods and a combination of them to characterize glass surfaces and bonded dye properties is discussed. Thermal lensing was used for determining the thermal stability of dye covers. The limit of detection of bonded Reactivrot B5A on a glass surface by thermal lensing is 1.6×10−10 mol cm−2.

The molecular layers of the Reactivrot B5A dye covalently bonded to flat quartz glass surfaces was studied by thermal lensing in combination with electron-probe microanalysis.