The temperature-dependent fluorescence anisotropy decay (orientational relaxation) of perylene and sodium 8-methoxypyrene-1,3,6-sulfonate (MPTS) were measured in a series of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (alkyl ) ethyl, butyl, hexyl, octyl) organic room temperature ionic liquids (RTIL). The two fluorescent probe molecules display markedly different rotational dynamics when analyzed using Stokes-Einstein-Debye theory, demonstrating that they are located in distinct environments within the RTILs and have very different interactions with their surroundings. Perylene rotates with subslip behavior, becoming increasingly subslip as the length of ionic liquid alkyl chain is increased. The dynamics approach those of perylene in an organic oil. In contrast, MPTS shows superstick behavior, likely reflecting very strong coordination with the RTIL cations. These results are consistent with different elements of rotational friction within the ionic liquid structure, which are available to solutes depending on their chemical functionality.

Optical heterodyne detected optical Kerr effect (OHD-OKE) measurements on a series of 1-alkyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) as a function of chain length and water concentration are presented. The pure RTIL reorientational dynamics are identical in form to those of other molecular liquids studied previously by OHD-OKE (two power laws followed by a single exponential decay at long times), but are much slower at room temperature. In contrast, the addition of water to the longer alkyl chain RTILs causes the emergence of a long time biexponential orientational anisotropy decay. Such distinctly biexponential decays have not been seen previously in OHD-OKE experiments on any type of liquid and are analyzed here using a wobbling-in-a-cone model. The slow component for the longer chain RTILs does not obey the Debye-Stokes-Einstein (DSE) equation across the range of solutions, and thus we attribute it to slow cation reorientational diffusion caused by a stiffening of cation alkyl tail-tail associations. The fast component of the decay is assigned to the motions (wobbling) of the tethered imidazolium head groups. The wobbling-in-a-cone analysis provides estimates of the range of angles sampled by the imidazolium head group prior to the long time scale complete orientational randomization. The heterogeneous dynamics and non-DSE behavior observed here should have a significant effect on reaction rates in RTIL/water cosolvent mixtures.

Optically heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect experiments are applied to study the orientational dynamics of the supercooled ionic organic liquids N-propyl-3-methylpyridinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide (PMPIm) and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tosylate (EMImTOS). The orientational dynamics are complex with relaxation involving several power law decays followed by a final exponential decay. A mode coupling theory (MCT) schematic model, the Sjögren model, was able to reproduce the PMPIm data very successfully over a wide range of times from 1 ps to hundreds of ns for all temperatures studied. Over the temperature range from room temperature down to the critical temperature T c of 231 K, the OHD-OKE signal of PMPIm is characterized by the intermediate power law t -1.00(0.04 at short times, a von Schweidler power law t -0.51(0.03 at intermediate times, and a highly temperature-dependent exponential (R relaxation) at long times. This form of the decay is identical to the form observed previously for a large number of organic van der Waals liquids. MCT analysis indicates that the theory can explain the experimental data very well for a range of temperatures above T c , but as might be expected, there are some deviations from the theoretical modeling at temperatures close to T c . For EMImTOS, the orientational dynamics were studied on the ps time scale in the deeply supercooled region near its glass transition temperature. The orientational relaxation of EMImTOS clearly displays the feature associated with the boson peak at ∼2 ps, which is the first time domain evidence of the boson peak in ionic organic liquids. Overall, all the dynamical features observed earlier for organic van der Waals liquids using the same experimental technique are also observed for organic ionic liquids.

The addition of lithium salts to ionic liquids causes an increase in viscosity and a decrease in ionic mobility that hinders their possible application as an alternative solvent in lithium ion batteries. Optically heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect spectroscopy was used to study the change in dynamics, principally orientational relaxation, caused by the addition of lithium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide to the ionic liquid 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide. Over the time scales studied (1 ps-16 ns) for the pure ionic liquid, two temperature-independent power laws were observed: the intermediate power law (1 ps to approximately 1 ns), followed by the von Schweidler power law. The von Schweidler power law is followed by the final complete exponential relaxation, which is highly sensitive to temperature. The lithium salt concentration, however, was found to affect both power laws, and a discontinuity could be found in the trend observed for the intermediate power law when the concentration (mole fraction) of lithium salt is close to chi(LiTf(2)N) = 0.2. A mode coupling theory (MCT) schematic model was also used to fit the data for both the pure ionic liquid and the different salt concentration mixtures. It was found that dynamics in both types of liquids are described very well by MCT.