Raman spectroscopy articles within Nature Chemistry

Featured

  • Research Briefing |

    Trans–cis photoisomerization is a fundamental photochemical reaction that is thought to proceed through an intermediate with a perpendicular conformation. However, unambiguous identification of this state has proved challenging. The combination of state-of-the-art ultrafast spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations now provides evidence for its structural observation in stilbene photoisomerization.

  • Article |

    The prototypical trans–cis photoisomerization of stilbenes is thought to occur via a transient intermediate with a perpendicular conformation—often called ‘the phantom state’—but its unambiguous identification has thus far proved difficult. Now, using ultrafast ultraviolet Raman spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulation, evidence for its existence and its perpendicular conformation has been obtained.

    • Hikaru Kuramochi
    • , Takuro Tsutsumi
    •  & Tahei Tahara

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Ions in salt solutions perturb the hydrogen bonding between the surrounding water molecules, altering the properties of water, but how ion polarity affects this is not fully understood. By monitoring the dissipation of terahertz energy in salt solutions, it has now been shown that intermolecular rotational-to-translational energy transfer is enhanced by highly charged cations and reduced by highly charged anions.

    • Vasileios Balos
    • , Naveen Kumar Kaliannan
    •  & Mohsen Sajadi

  • Article |

    Photoreceptors play an essential role in determining the fate of subsequent biological reactions, however, tracking their structural evolution on ultrafast timescales has been challenging. Now, photoactive yellow protein has been studied using time-domain Raman spectroscopy with sub-7-femtosecond pulses, revealing the ultrafast rearrangement of its hydrogen-bonding structure and also the structure of the first photocycle intermediate.

    • Hikaru Kuramochi
    • , Satoshi Takeuchi
    •  & Tahei Tahara

  • Article |

    Ultrafast 2D Raman-THz spectroscopy has been applied to investigate the dynamics of the hydrogen-bond networks in aqueous salt solutions. It was demonstrated that the degree of inhomogeneity of the intermolecular modes of the liquid correlates with the structure-making capability of the cation.

    • Andrey Shalit
    • , Saima Ahmed
    •  & Peter Hamm

  • Article |

    Difficulties in experimentally achieving simultaneous structural sensitivity and time resolution have hindered the real-time mapping of the vibrational energy relaxation pathways in biomacromolecules. Now, using ultrashort light pulses to locally deposit excess energy in a protein-bound haem, the temporal evolution of the subsequent energy flow has been monitored, unravelling vibrational couplings that lead to mode-specific temperature changes.

    • C. Ferrante
    • , E. Pontecorvo
    •  & T. Scopigno

  • Article |

    Singlet fission, a spin-allowed conversion of a spin-singlet state into a pair of spin-triplet excitons, may be useful for the development of next-generation photovoltaics. Ultrafast coherence measurements now show that vibrational motions play a critical role in fission as they facilitate the mixing of triplet-pair states with singlet excitons.

    • Artem A. Bakulin
    • , Sarah E. Morgan
    •  & Akshay Rao

  • News & Views |

    The transfer of chirality is known to occur through chemical bonds. Now, chiral biomolecules have been observed to impart some of their optical properties to a spatially separated achiral dye — with the transfer mediated by plasmon resonance from an achiral metallic nanostructure.

    • Vladimiro Mujica

  • Article |

    Surface-enhanced resonant Raman optical activity (SERROA) reveals the through-space transfer of chirality from biomolecules to achiral benzotriazole dye-conjugated nanotags. The chiroptical responses generated by the stereoisomers of ribose and tryptophan establish this as the basis for a stereoselective nanosensor platform.

    • Saeideh Ostovar pour
    • , Louise Rocks
    •  & Ewan W. Blanch

  • Article |

    Photoswitching of phytochromes is based on the isomerization of the tetrapyrrole chromophore, and eventually leads to the (de)activation of an enzymatic output module. Now it has been shown that both the structural changes associated with photoswitching and the thermal decay of the light-activated state are coupled to proton translocations in the chromophore pocket.

    • Francisco Velazquez Escobar
    • , Patrick Piwowarski
    •  & Peter Hildebrandt

  • Article |

    Hydrophobe/water interfaces are crucial for many chemical processes, but to be fully understood, a better appreciation of the behaviour of non-hydrogen-bonded OH groups of water is required. It is now shown that such ‘dangling’ OH structures are entropically stabilized and form cooperatively, that is, the probability of their formation depends nonlinearly on hydrophobic surface area.

    • Joel G. Davis
    • , Blake M. Rankin
    •  & Dor Ben-Amotz

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