A method to determine the orientations of adsorbed molecules by near edge structures and selection rules

Since non-diffuse molecular orbitals NMOs are insensitive to environmentwhen molecules are adsorbed and not brokenthe near edge structures involving NMOs will still resemble structures of corresponding free molecules. If we probe adsorbed molecules with polarized X-ray photonsrelative intensities of photoabsorption spectra near molecular edges will be different for various geometric arrangement of X-ray polarization. Such features can be used to determine orientations of adsorbed molecules.