Dipole orientational order at liquid/vapor surfaces

We present ellipsometric observations of the orientational order alpha(2) of highly polar molecules at the noncritical liquid/vapor surface of critical polar+nonpolar mixtures. The dipoles, which are repelled from the interface via interactions with their image dipoles, are preferentially oriented with their axes parallel to the surface and possess an orientational order which is well described by alpha(2) approximately -t(2beta)D+(z/xi), where t=[T-T(c)]/T(c) is the reduced temperature, beta=0.328 is a critical exponent, and D+ is a universal function of the dimensionless depth z/xi with surface correlation length xi.