UC Santa Barbara

recently-proposed photomolecular effect wherein polar liquids, principally pure water,can be made to evaporate at higher rates than possible through thermal evaporation alone under specific illumination conditions is experimentally investigated. Specifically, measurements of water mass loss were taken while independently varying illumination wavelength, intensity, angle of incidence and polarization. Prior experiments that resulted in data supporting the existence of the proposed effect were duplicated in an effort to obtain confirming results. Additionally, past experiments producing data consistent with the proposed photomolecular effect were duplicated and extended to evaluate their previously-unexplained results in the context of the photomolecular effect. An experiment specifically intended to directly measure vapor generated by the photomolecular effect was also conceived and built. The presented experiments ultimately failed to confirm or refute the existence of the proposed photomolecular effect, however qualitative analysis of obtained results suggests that the effect is considerably weaker than previously thought, depends on yet-unknown criteria, or possibly does not exist as expected.