Satoshi Nihonyanagi

Direct evidence for orientational flip-flop of water molecules at charged interfaces: A heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation study

Complex chi(2) spectra of air/water interfaces in the presence of charged surfactants were measured by heterodyne-detected broadband vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy for the first time. In contrast to the neat water surface, the signs of chi(2) for two broad OH bands are the same in the presence of the charged surfactants. The obtained chi(2) spectra clearly showed flip-flop of the interfacial water molecules which is induced by the opposite charge of the head group of the surfactants. With the sign of beta(2) theoretically obtained, the absolute orientation, i.e., up/down orientation, of water molecules at the charged aqueous surfaces was uniquely determined by the relation between the sign of chi(2) and the molecular orientation angle. Water molecules orient with their hydrogen up at the negatively charged aqueous interface whereas their oxygen up at the positively charged aqueous interface.

Unified Molecular View of the Air/Water Interface Based on Experimental and Theoretical χ(2) Spectra of an Isotopically Diluted Water Surface

The energetically unfavorable termination of the hydrogen-bonded network of water molecules at the air/water interface causes molecular rearrangement to minimize the free energy. The long-standing question is how water minimizes the surface free energy. The combination of advanced, surface-specific nonlinear spectroscopy and theoretical simulation provides new insights. The complex χ((2)) spectra of isotopically diluted water surfaces obtained by heterodyne-detected sum frequency generation spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulation show excellent agreement, assuring the validity of the microscopic picture given in the simulation. The present study indicates that there is no ice-like structure at the surface--in other words, there is no increase of tetrahedrally coordinated structure compared to the bulk--but that there are water pairs interacting with a strong hydrogen bond at the outermost surface. Intuitively, this can be considered a consequence of the lack of a hydrogen bond toward the upper gas phase, enhancing the lateral interaction at the boundary. This study also confirms that the major source of the isotope effect on the water χ((2)) spectra is the intramolecular anharmonic coupling, i.e., Fermi resonance.

Structure and Orientation of Water at Charged Lipid Monolayer/Water Interfaces Probed by Heterodyne-Detected Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy

Cell membrane/water interfaces provide a unique environment for many biochemical reactions, and associated interfacial water is an integral part of such reactions. A molecular level understanding of the structure and orientation of water at lipid/water interfaces is required to realize the complex chemistry at biointerfaces. Here we report the heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation (HD-VSFG) studies of lipid monolayer/water interfaces. At charged lipid/water interfaces, the orientation of interfacial water is governed by the net charge on the lipid headgroup; at an anionic lipid/water interface, water is in the hydrogen-up orientation, and at the cationic lipid/water interface, water is in the hydrogen-down orientation. At the cationic and anionic lipid/water interfaces, interfacial water has comparable hydrogen bond strength, and it is analogous to the bulk water.

Three Distinct Water Structures at a Zwitterionic Lipid/Water Interface Revealed by Heterodyne-Detected Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation

Lipid/water interfaces and associated interfacial water are vital for various biochemical reactions, but the molecular-level understanding of their property is very limited. We investigated the water structure at a zwitterionic lipid, phosphatidylcholine, monolayer/water interface using heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy. Isotopically diluted water was utilized in the experiments to minimize the effect of intra/intermolecular couplings. It was found that the OH stretch band in the Imχ((2)) spectrum of the phosphatidylcholine/water interface exhibits a characteristic double-peaked feature. To interpret this peculiar spectrum of the zwitterionic lipid/water interface, Imχ((2)) spectra of a zwitterionic surfactant/water interface and mixed lipid/water interfaces were measured. The Imχ((2)) spectrum of the zwitterionic surfactant/water interface clearly shows both positive and negative bands in the OH stretch region, revealing that multiple water structures exist at the interface. At the mixed lipid/water interfaces, while gradually varying the fraction of the anionic and cationic lipids, we observed a drastic change in the Imχ((2)) spectra in which spectral features similar to those of the anionic, zwitterionic, and cationic lipid/water interfaces appeared successively. These observations demonstrate that, when the positive and negative charges coexist at the interface, the H-down-oriented water structure and H-up-oriented water structure appear in the vicinity of the respective charged sites. In addition, it was found that a positive Imχ((2)) appears around 3600 cm(-1) for all the monolayer interfaces examined, indicating weakly interacting water species existing in the hydrophobic region of the monolayer at the interface. On the basis of these results, we concluded that the characteristic Imχ((2)) spectrum of the zwitterionic lipid/water interface arises from three different types of water existing at the interface: (1) the water associated with the negatively charged phosphate, which is strongly H-bonded and has a net H-up orientation, (2) the water around the positively charged choline, which forms weaker H-bonds and has a net H-down orientation, and (3) the water weakly interacting with the hydrophobic region of the lipid, which has a net H-up orientation.

Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water Studied by Heterodyne-Detected Vibrational Sum-Frequency Generation

Vibrational sum-frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy is a powerful tool to study interfaces. Recently, multiplex heterodyne-detected VSFG (HD-VSFG) has been developed, which enables the direct measurement of complex second-order nonlinear susceptibility [χ((2))]. HD-VSFG has remarkable advantages over conventional VSFG. For example, the imaginary part of χ((2)) [Imχ((2))] obtained with this interferometric technique is the direct counterpart to the infrared [Imχ((1))] and Raman [Imχ((3))] spectra in the bulk, and it is free from the spectral deformation inevitable in conventional VSFG [|χ((2))|(2)] spectra. The Imχ((2)) signal is obtained with a sign that contains unambiguous information about the up/down orientation of interfacial molecules. Furthermore, HD-VSFG can be straightforwardly extended to time-resolved measurements when combined with photoexcitation. In this review, we describe the present status of experiments and applications of multiplex HD-VSFG spectroscopy, in particular with regard to the orientation and structure of interfacial water at charged, neutral, and biorelevant water interfaces.

Sum frequency generation (SFG) study of the pH-dependent water structure on a fused quartz surface modified by an octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) monolayer

The interface-sensitive spectroscopic method, sum frequency generation (SFG), has been used to investigate the interfacial water structure on a fused quartz surface modified by an octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer in phosphate buffered solutions at various pHs. The experimental results demonstrate that the water molecules at the quartz/OTS surface flip while the water molecules at the OTS surface maintain their orientation when the solution pH is changed from neutral to acidic. The results show that most of the silanol groups still exist on the fused quartz surface even after a silane coupling reaction of OTS under the reported experimental conditions.

Counterion Effect on Interfacial Water at Charged Interfaces and Its Relevance to the Hofmeister Series

Specific counterion effects represented by Hofmeister series are important for a variety of phenomena such as protein precipitations, surface tensions of electrolytes solutions, phase transitions of surfactants, etc. We applied heterodyne-detected vibrational sum-frequency generation spectroscopy to study the counterion effect on the interfacial water at charged interfaces and discussed the observed effect with relevance to the Hofmeister series. Experiments were carried out for model systems of positively charged cetyltrimethylammonium monolayer/electrolyte solution interface and negatively charged dodecylsulfate monolayer/electrolyte interface. At the positively charged interface, the intensity of the OH band of the interfacial water decreases in the order of the Hofmeister series, suggesting that the adsorbability of halide anions onto the interface determines the Hofmeister order as previously proposed by Zhang and Cremer (Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol. 2006, 10, 658-663). At the negatively charged interfaces, on the other hand, the OH band intensity does not depend significantly on the countercation, whereas variation in the hydrogen-bond strength of the interfacial water is well correlated with the Hofmeister order of the cation effect. These results provide new insights into the molecular level mechanisms of anionic and cationic Hofmeister effects.

Ultrafast vibrational dynamics of water at a charged interface revealed by two-dimensional heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation

Two-dimensional heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation (2D HD-VSFG) spectroscopy is performed for an aqueous interface for the first time. The 2D HD-VSFG spectra in the OH stretch region are obtained from a positively charged surfactant/water interface with isotopically diluted water (HOD/D(2)O) to reveal the femtosecond vibrational dynamics of water at the charged interface. The 2D HD-VSFG spectrum is diagonally elongated immediately after photoexcitation, clearly demonstrating inhomogeneity in the interfacial water. This elongation almost disappears at 300 fs owing to the spectral diffusion. Interestingly, the 2D HD-VSFG spectrum at the 0 fs shows an oppositely asymmetric shape to the corresponding 2D IR spectrum in bulk water: The bandwidth of the bleach signal gets narrower when the pump wavenumber becomes higher. This suggests that the dynamics and mechanism of the hydrogen bond rearrangement at the charged interface are significantly different from those in bulk water.

Accurate determination of complex χ(2) spectrum of the air/water interface.

Discussion on the structure of the water surface relies on accurate determination of the χ(2) spectrum. For obtaining accurate χ(2) spectrum of the air/water interface in the OH stretch region, we performed heterodyne-detected vibrational sum-frequency generation measurements with a high phase accuracy, and also examined the validity of the phase and amplitude calibration using different non-resonant materials. In contrast to the previous reports, it was concluded that the imaginary part of the χ(2) spectrum of the air/water interface does not exhibit noticeable positive resonance in the low frequency region within the experimental error. This result urges us to reconsider the structure of the air/water interface based on the accurate χ(2) spectrum.

2D heterodyne-detected sum frequency generation study on the ultrafast vibrational dynamics of H2O and HOD water at charged interfaces

Two-dimensional heterodyne-detected vibrational sum-frequency generation (2D HD-VSFG) spectroscopy is applied to study the ultrafast vibrational dynamics of water at positively charged aqueous interfaces, and 2D HD-VSFG spectra of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)/water interfaces in the whole hydrogen-bonded OH stretch region (3000 cm(-1) ≤ ωpump ≤ 3600 cm(-1)) are measured. 2D HD-VSFG spectrum of the CTAB/isotopically diluted water (HOD-D2O) interface exhibits a diagonally elongated bleaching lobe immediately after excitation, which becomes round with a time constant of ∼0.3 ps due to spectral diffusion. In contrast, 2D HD-VSFG spectrum of the CTAB/H2O interface at 0.0 ps clearly shows two diagonal peaks and their cross peaks in the bleaching region, corresponding to the double peaks observed at 3230 cm(-1) and 3420 cm(-1) in the steady-state HD-VSFG spectrum. Horizontal slices of the 2D spectrum show that the relative intensity of the two peaks of the bleaching at the CTAB/H2O interface gradually change with the change of the pump frequency. We simulate the pump-frequency dependence of the bleaching feature using a model that takes account of the Fermi resonance and inhomogeneity of the OH stretch vibration, and the simulated spectra reproduce the essential features of the 2D HD-VSFG spectra of the CTAB/H2O interface. The present study demonstrates that heterodyne detection of the time-resolved VSFG is critically important for studying the ultrafast dynamics of water interfaces and for unveiling the underlying mechanism.