Brooks H. Pate

A broadband Fourier transform microwave spectrometer based on chirped pulse excitation

Designs for a broadband chirped pulse Fourier transform microwave (CP-FTMW) spectrometer are presented. The spectrometer is capable of measuring the 7-18 GHz region of a rotational spectrum in a single data acquisition. One design uses a 4.2 Gsampless arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) to produce a 1 mus duration chirped pulse with a linear frequency sweep of 1.375 GHz. This pulse is sent through a microwave circuit to multiply the bandwidth of the pulse by a factor of 8 and upconvert it to the 7.5-18.5 GHz range. The chirped pulse is amplified by a traveling wave tube amplifier and broadcast inside the spectrometer by using a double ridge standard gain horn antenna. The broadband molecular free induction decay (FID) is received by a second horn antenna, downconverted, and digitized by a 40 Gsampless (12 GHz hardware bandwidth) digital oscilloscope. The second design uses a simplified pulse generation and FID detection scheme, employing current state-of-the-art high-speed digital electronics. In this spectrometer, a chirped pulse with 12 GHz of bandwidth is directly generated by using a 20 Gsampless AWG and upconverted in a single step with an ultrabroadband mixer. The amplified molecular emission is directly detected by using a 50 Gsampless digital oscilloscope with 18 GHz bandwidth. In both designs, fast Fourier transform of the FID produces the frequency domain rotational spectrum in the 7-18 GHz range. The performance of the CP-FTMW spectrometer is compared to a Balle-Flygare-type cavity-FTMW spectrometer. The CP-FTMW spectrometer produces an equal sensitivity spectrum with a factor of 40 reduction in measurement time and a reduction in sample consumption by a factor of 20. The CP-FTMW spectrometer also displays good intensity accuracy for both sample number density and rotational transition moment. Strategies to reduce the CP-FTMW measurement time by another factor of 90 while simultaneously reducing the sample consumption by a factor of 30 are demonstrated.

Structures of Cage, Prism, and Book Isomers of Water Hexamer from Broadband Rotational Spectroscopy

Cage, Book, and Prism The array of hydrogen bonds governing the extended structure of liquid water is so intricate that chemists have often sought to understand it by studying simpler clusters. Even so, it has been challenging to get a handle on the preferred arrangement adopted by just six water molecules. Interdependent theoretical and spectroscopic studies have narrowed down the lowest-energy hexamer structures to three isomers—respectively designated the cage, the book, and the prism—but their relative energies remain uncertain. Now, Pérez et al. (p. 897; see the Perspective by Saykally and Wales) have observed all three isomers in a single experiment, using Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy, and were able to establish definitively their energy ordering. Observing three distinct water clusters in the same experiment resolves long-standing questions about their relative stabilities. Theory predicts the water hexamer to be the smallest water cluster with a three-dimensional hydrogen-bonding network as its minimum energy structure. There are several possible low-energy isomers, and calculations with different methods and basis sets assign them different relative stabilities. Previous experimental work has provided evidence for the cage, book, and cyclic isomers, but no experiment has identified multiple coexisting structures. Here, we report that broadband rotational spectroscopy in a pulsed supersonic expansion unambiguously identifies all three isomers; we determined their oxygen framework structures by means of oxygen-18–substituted water (H218O). Relative isomer populations at different expansion conditions establish that the cage isomer is the minimum energy structure. Rotational spectra consistent with predicted heptamer and nonamer structures have also been identified.

Measuring Picosecond Isomerization Kinetics via Broadband Microwave Spectroscopy

The rotational spectrum of a highly excited molecule is qualitatively different from its pure rotational spectrum and contains information about the intramolecular dynamics. We have developed a broadband Fourier transform microwave spectrometer that uses chirped-pulse excitation to measure a rotational spectrum in the 7.5- to 18.5-gigahertz range in a single shot and thereby reduces acquisition time sufficiently to couple molecular rotational spectroscopy with tunable laser excitation. After vibrationally exciting a single molecular conformation of cyclopropane carboxaldehyde above the barrier to C–C single-bond isomerization, we applied line-shape analysis of the dynamic rotational spectrum to reveal a product yield and picosecond reaction rate that were significantly different from statistical predictions. The technique should be widely applicable to dynamical studies of radical intermediates, molecular complexes, and conformationally flexible molecules with biological interest.

The onset of intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution and its intermediate case: The ν1 and 2ν1 molecular beam, optothermal spectra of trifluoropropyne

Using the optothermal method for molecular beam, infrared spectroscopy, we have measured both the fundamental and first overtone of the acetylenic C–H stretch in CF3CCH. In the fundamental we observe a spectrum which shows only few perturbations. The majority of lines can be successfully fit to a model assuming an anharmonic coupling of the C–H stretch to a single, near‐resonant background state with a coupling matrix element of 0.006 cm−1. We have observed other perturbations in this spectrum, including a state coupled by a weak perpendicular Coriolis interaction. All observed couplings are very weak and local in nature. In the overtone, where the density of background states increases by a factor of 100, we observe a spectrum characteristic of a system in the intermediate case of IVR (intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution). Analysis of the R(0) and P(1) transitions provides a homogeneous IVR lifetime of about 2 ns, which is long compared to lifetimes generally quoted for overtone vibrational ...

Concerted hydrogen-bond breaking by quantum tunneling in the water hexamer prism

Gear-like rotation by a wobbly water duo The molecules in liquid water move about constantly, but on average they cling to each other through hydrogen bonds, like dancers who keep switching partners. Richardson et al. uncovered a fresh twist in this molecular dance (see the Perspective by Clary). Studying clusters of six molecules each—essentially the smallest three-dimensional water droplets—they observed coupled motion of two different molecules in the cluster. The process breaks two different hydrogen bonds concurrently in a pattern akin to rotating gears. Science, this issue p. 1310; see also p. 1267 Rotational spectroscopy and accompanying theory uncover gearlike joint motion of a pair of water molecules in a cluster. [Also see Perspective by Clary] The nature of the intermolecular forces between water molecules is the same in small hydrogen-bonded clusters as in the bulk. The rotational spectra of the clusters therefore give insight into the intermolecular forces present in liquid water and ice. The water hexamer is the smallest water cluster to support low-energy structures with branched three-dimensional hydrogen-bond networks, rather than cyclic two-dimensional topologies. Here we report measurements of splitting patterns in rotational transitions of the water hexamer prism, and we used quantum simulations to show that they result from geared and antigeared rotations of a pair of water molecules. Unlike previously reported tunneling motions in water clusters, the geared motion involves the concerted breaking of two hydrogen bonds. Similar types of motion may be feasible in interfacial and confined water.

Sub‐Doppler, infrared laser spectroscopy of the propyne 2ν1 band: Evidence of z‐axis Coriolis dominated intramolecular state mixing in the acetylenic CH stretch overtone

The eigenstate‐resolved 2ν1 (acetylenic CH stretch) absorptionspectrum of propane has been observed for J’=0–11 and K=0–3 in a skimmed supersonic molecular beam using optothermal detection. Radiation near 1.5 μm was generated by a color center laser allowing spectra to be obtained with a full‐width at half‐maximum resolution of 6×10−4 cm−1 (18 MHz). Three distinct characteristics are observed for the perturbations suffered by the optically active (bright) acetylenic CH stretch vibrational state due to vibrational coupling to the nonoptically active (dark) vibrational bath states. (1) The K=0 states are observed to be unperturbed. (2) Approximately 2/3 of the observed K=1–3 transitions are split into 0.02–0.25 cm−1 wide multiplets of two to five lines. These splittings are due to intramolecular coupling of 2ν1 to the near resonant bath states with an average matrix element of 〈V 2〉1/2=0.002 cm−1 that appears to grow approximately linearly with K. (3) The K subband origins are observed to be displaced from the positions predicted for a parallel band, symmetric top spectrum. The first two features suggest that the coupling of the bright state to the bath states is dominated by parallel (z‐axis) Coriolis coupling. The third suggests a nonresonant coupling (Coriolis or anharmonic) to a perturber, not directly observed in the spectrum, that itself tunes rapidly with K; the latter being the signature of diagonal z‐axis Coriolis interactions affecting the perturber. A natural interpretation of these facts is that the coupling between the bright state and the dark states is mediated by a doorway state that is anharmonically coupled to the bright state and z‐axis Coriolis coupled to the dark states.Z‐axis Coriolis coupling of the doorway state to the bright state can be ruled out since the ν1normal mode cannot couple to any of the other normal modes by a parallel Coriolis interaction. Based on the range of measured matrix elements and the distribution of the number of perturbations observed we find that the bath levels that couple to 2ν1 do not exhibit Gaussian orthogonal ensemble type statistics but instead show statistics consistent with a Poisson spectrum, suggesting regular, not chaotic, classical dynamics.

Influence of methyl group deuteration on the rate of intramolecular vibrational energy relaxation

The high resolution spectra of the fundamental and first overtone of the acetylenic C–H stretch in tert.‐butylacetylene‐d9 and (trimethylsilyl)acetylene‐d9 have been measured using optothermal detection of a collimated molecular beam. IVR lifetimes determined from the homogeneously broadened lineshapes are compared to those of their undeuterated analogues. It is found that for both molecules, at both levels of excitation, deuterating the methyl rotors results in an increased rate of IVR. The results indicate that the previously suggested methyl rotor effect, as an enhancer for IVR, plays a secondary role to increasing the number of low order resonances to which the C–H stretch can couple. Although the torsional modes are important for the molecules to exhibit statistical case IVR and contribute to the filled‐in homogeneous lineshapes, the rate of energy relaxation seems to be dominated by the number of low order resonances.

LABORATORY AND TENTATIVE INTERSTELLAR DETECTION OF TRANS-METHYL FORMATE USING THE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE GREEN BANK TELESCOPE PRIMOS SURVEY

The rotational spectrum of the higher-energy trans conformational isomer of methyl formate has been assigned for the first time using several pulsed-jet Fourier transform microwave spectrometers in the 6-60 GHz frequency range. This species has also been sought toward the Sagittarius B2(N) molecular cloud using the publicly available PRIMOS survey from the Green Bank Telescope. We detect seven absorption features in the survey that coincide with laboratory transitions of trans-methyl formate, from which we derive a column density of 3.1 (+2.6, -1.2) \times 10^13 cm-2 and a rotational temperature of 7.6 \pm 1.5 K. This excitation temperature is significantly lower than that of the more stable cis conformer in the same source but is consistent with that of other complex molecular species recently detected in Sgr B2(N). The difference in the rotational temperatures of the two conformers suggests that they have different spatial distributions in this source. As the abundance of trans-methyl formate is far higher than would be expected if the cis and trans conformers are in thermodynamic equilibrium, processes that could preferentially form trans-methyl formate in this region are discussed. We also discuss measurements that could be performed to make this detection more certain. This manuscript demonstrates how publicly available broadband radio astronomical surveys of chemically rich molecular clouds can be used in conjunction with laboratory rotational spectroscopy to search for new molecules in the interstellar medium.

The rate of intramolecular vibrational energy relaxation of the fundamental C–H stretch in (CF3)3C–C≡C–H

The high resolution spectrum of the fundamental C–H stretch in (CF3)3C–C≡C–H has been measured using optothermal detection of a collimated molecular beam. Only the Q branch was resolvable and was fit to a Lorentzian with a full width at half maximum of 2.76 GHz, corresponding to an IVR lifetime of 60 ps. The decrease in lifetime in comparison to (CH3)3C–C≡C–H is thought to be due to strong mixing between the C–F stretches and bends and the backbone C–C stretches and bends.

Hydrogen Bond Cooperativity and the Three‐Dimensional Structures of Water Nonamers and Decamers

Broadband rotational spectroscopy of water clusters produced in a pulsed molecular jet expansion has been used to determine the oxygen atom geometry in three isomers of the nonamer and two isomers of the decamer. The isomers for each cluster size have the same nominal geometry but differ in the arrangement of their hydrogen bond networks. The nearest neighbor OO distances show a characteristic pattern for each hydrogen bond network isomer that is caused by three-body effects that produce cooperative hydrogen bonding. The observed structures are the lowest energy cluster geometries identified by quantum chemistry and the experimental and theoretical OO distances are in good agreement. The cooperativity effects revealed by the hydrogen bond OO distance variations are shown to be consistent with a simple model for hydrogen bonding in water that takes into account the cooperative and anticooperative bonding effects of nearby water molecules.