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Capturing intrinsic site-dependent spectral signatures and lifetimes of isolated OH oscillators in extended water networks

Nature Chemistry volume 12, pages 159–164 (2020)Cite this article

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Abstract

The extremely broad infrared spectrum of water in the OH stretching region is a manifestation of how profoundly a water molecule is distorted when embedded in its extended hydrogen-bonding network. Many effects contribute to this breadth in solution at room temperature, which raises the question as to what the spectrum of a single OH oscillator would be in the absence of thermal fluctuations and coupling to nearby OH groups. We report the intrinsic spectral responses of isolated OH oscillators embedded in two cold (~20 K), hydrogen-bonded water cages adopted by the Cs+·(HDO)(D2O)19 and D3O+·(HDO)(D2O)19 clusters. Most OH oscillators yield single, isolated features that occur with linewidths that increase approximately linearly with their redshifts. Oscillators near 3,400 cm−1, however, occur with a second feature, which indicates that OH stretch excitation of these molecules drives low-frequency, phonon-type motions of the cage. The excited state lifetimes inferred from the broadening are considered in the context of fluctuations in the local electric fields that are available even at low temperature.

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Fig. 1: Representative structures of the pentagonal dodecahedron (PD0) water cages.
Fig. 2: Isolating the spectral signatures of individual OH groups in the Cs+·(HDO)(D2O)19 spectrum with IR-IR hole burning.
Fig. 3: Isolating the spectral signatures of individual OH groups in the D3O+·(HDO)(D2O)19·D2 spectrum, highlighting the appearance of a second feature in the isotopomer-specific spectra near 3,400 cm−1.
Fig. 4: Dependence of experimental linewidths of OH stretching features on redshift.

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The authors declare that all data supporting the findings of this study are available within the paper and its Supplementary information files.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge extensive discussions with A. B. McCoy on the possible origins of the broadening, as well as unpublished results shared by S. Xantheas on variations in the low-energy structures available to the Cs+·(H2O)20 clusters. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant CHE-1900119 and carried out with the instrument developed under AFOSR DURIP grant FA9550-17-1-0267. The part of the study on the H3O+(H2O)20 cluster was carried out under US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, CPIMS Program under grant award DE-FG02-06ER15800 as part of a larger effort designed to determine the barriers for proton translocation through the cage structure. C.H.D. thanks the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship for funding under grant DGE‐1122492.

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Author notes

  1. Patrick J. Kelleher

    Present address: Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sterling Chemistry Laboratory, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Nan Yang, Chinh H. Duong, Patrick J. Kelleher & Mark A. Johnson

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Contributions

M.A.J. conceptualized and supervised the experiments, N.Y., C.H.D. and P.J.K. performed the experiments, N.Y. analysed the data, performed calculations and wrote the simulation codes. All the authors discussed the results and worked on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark A. Johnson.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, Figs. 1–8, Tables 1–3 and calculations.

Supplementary Data 1

Raw data used to generate the figures.

Cs 57 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of Cs+·(H2O)20 cluster (57 cm−1).

Cs 60 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of Cs+·(H2O)20 cluster (60 cm−1).

Cs 63 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of Cs+·(H2O)20 cluster (63 cm−1).

Cs 65 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of Cs+·(H2O)20 cluster (65 cm−1).

H 60 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of H3O+·(H2O)20 cluster (60 cm−1).

H 61 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of H3O+·(H2O)20 cluster (61 cm−1).

H 63 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of H3O+·(H2O)20 cluster (63 cm−1).

H 64 mode

Representative low-energy vibrational mode of H3O+·(H2O)20 cluster (64 cm-1).

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Yang, N., Duong, C.H., Kelleher, P.J. et al. Capturing intrinsic site-dependent spectral signatures and lifetimes of isolated OH oscillators in extended water networks. Nat. Chem. 12, 159–164 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0376-9

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