Hydrogen bond breaking dynamics of the water trimer in the translational and librational band region of liquid water

FN Keutsch, RS Fellers, MG Brown, Mark Viant, PB Petersen, RJ Saykally

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle

41 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The effect of exciting each of the three classes of intermolecular vibrations on the hydrogen bond lifetime (tau(H)) of the isolated water trimer is investigated by far-infrared laser spectroscopy. Single excitation of a librational vibration decreases tau(H) by 3 orders of magnitude to tau(H) = 1-6 ps, comparable to the time scale of a number of important bulk water dynamical relaxation processes. In contrast, excitation of translational or torsional vibrations has no significant effect (tau(H) = 1-2 ns). Although such a dependence of tau(H) on intermolecular motions has also been proposed for liquid water via computer simulations, these are the first experiments that provide a detailed molecular picture of the respective motions without extensive interpretation.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5938-5941
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of the American Chemical Society
Volume123
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2001

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