Daniel Autrey

Raman spectroscopy of vapors at elevated temperatures

The most effective way to obtain high quality vapor-phase Raman spectra is to heat the samples to increase their vapor pressure. Many samples can be heated to 350 °C and higher without decomposition. We have designed a simple Raman cell to allow these high temperature studies to be carried out. The high-temperature Raman spectra of nine molecules will be presented and discussed. Most of these are non-rigid molecules containing aromatic rings for which vibrational potential energy surfaces have been determined from their spectra. Two molecules (p-cresol and 3-methylindole) are model compounds for amino acids and their vapor-phase spectra are characteristic of environments with no hydrogen bonding.

Laser-induced fluorescence, electronic absorption, infrared and Raman spectra, and ab initio calculations of 1,2-dihydronaphthalene: Investigation of the out-of-plane ring modes for the ground and S1(π,π*) excited states

The laser-induced fluorescence spectra and dispersed fluorescence spectra of jet-cooled 1,2-dihydronaphthalene have been analyzed to investigate the ring inversion process in both the S0 and S1(π,π*) excited states. Ultraviolet absorption, infrared, and Raman spectra were also recorded to complement the analyses. Ab initio calculations predict the inversion process to involve four out-of-plane ring motions, and linear combinations of these were made to model the inversion process. The data show the barrier to inversion in the ground state to be 1363±100 cm−1 (the triple-zeta ab initio value is 1524 cm−1). The experimental data indicate that the barrier increases substantially in the excited state, for which the calculated barrier is 1526 cm−1 with a CIS/6-311+G(d) basis set.