The primary event in the ionization of water involves rapid proton transfer, leading to charge localization on H(3)O(+) and the creation of a hydroxyl radical. We trap the nascent [H(3)O(+).(*)OH] exit channel intermediate in the bimolecular reaction by Ar-mediated ionization of the neutral water dimer and characterize the nature of this ion-radical complex using vibrational predissociation spectroscopy of the Ar-tagged species. The resulting bands involving the displacement of the bridging proton are broad and appear as a strong triplet centered around 2000 cm(-1). The observed band pattern is analyzed with theoretical calculations to identify the origin of the anhamonic effects evident in the spectrum. In the course of this work, expressions were derived for treating the coupling terms within a sinc-DVR. Although this level of treatment did not reveal the assignment of the triplet structure, its characteristic approximately 100 cm(-1) spacing suggests activity involving the frustrated rotation of the hydroxyl radical upon excitation of the bridging-proton vibration parallel to the heavy atom axis. The behavior of this system is considered in the context of that reported previously for the related H(5)O(2)(+), H(3)O(2)(-), and F(-).H(2)O complexes.
We demonstrate a method for isolating the vibrational predissociation spectra of different structural isomers of mass-selected cluster ions based on a population-labeling double resonance scheme. This involves a variation on the "ion dip" approach and is carried out with three stages of mass selection in order to separate the fragment ion signals arising from a fixed-frequency population-monitoring laser and those generated by a scanned laser that removes population of species resonant in the course of the scan. We demonstrate the method on the Ar-tagged NO(2) (-)H(2)O cluster, where we identify the spectral patterns arising from two isomers. One of these structures features accommodation of the water molecule in a double H-bond arrangement, while in the other, H(2)O attaches in a single ionic H-bond motif where the nominally free OH group is oriented toward the N atom of NO(2) (-). Transitions derived from both the NO(2) (-) and H(2)O constituents are observed for both isomers, allowing us to gauge the distortions suffered by both the ion and solvent molecules in the different hydration arrangements.
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We report Ar-predissociation vibrational spectra of the binary proton-bound hydrates of acetonitrile (AN), AN x H(+) x OH(2) and AN x D(+) x OD(2), in the 600-3800 cm(-1) energy range. This complex was specifically chosen to explore the nature of the intermolecular proton bond when there is a large difference between the electric dipole moments of the two tethered molecules. Sharp, isotope-dependent bands in the vicinity of 1000 cm(-1) are traced to AN x H(+) x OH(2) vibrations involving the parallel displacement of the shared proton along the heavy atom axis, nu(sp)(parallel). These transitions lie much lower in energy than anticipated by a recently reported empirical trend which found the nu(sp)(parallel) fundamentals to be strongly correlated with the difference in proton affinities (DeltaPA) between the two tethered molecules (Roscioli et al., Science, 2007, 316, 249). The different behavior of the AN x H(+) x OH(2) complex is discussed in the context of the recent theoretical prediction (Fridgen, J. Phys. Chem A., 2006, 110, 6122) that a large disparity in dipole moments would lead to such a deviation from the reported (DeltaPA) trend.
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