Refractive index measurement of imidazolium based ionic liquids in the Vis-NIR

In this paper spectrally resolved white light interferometry is applied for measuring the refractive index of different ionic liquids over a wide spectral band from 400 to 1000 nm. The measuring device is compound by a Michelson interferometer whose output is analyzed by means of two spectrometers. The first one is a homemade prism spectrometer which provides the interferogram produced by the sample over a wide continuum spectrum. The second one is a commercial diffraction grating spectrometer used to make high precision measurements of the displacement between the Michelson mirrors by interferometry. Both instruments combined allow the retrieval of the refractive index of the sample over a wide visible-near infrared continuum spectrum with deviations on the fourth decimal. A group of 14 different ionic liquids based on the 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium cation have been studied through this technique. The measured refractive index of the ionic liquids is used to calculate their electronic polarizability. This makes possible to gain insight into the microscopic behavior of the compounds. To give a better picture, the liquids have been classified in four groups and their refractive indices and polarizabilities are compared in order to find correlations between these magnitudes and the structure of the liquids.