title: Searching for voids in liquids with optical Kerr effect spectroscopy.
abstract: It has recently been shown [J. Chem. Phys. 2005, 122, 134506; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 5119] that liquid tetrahydrofuran has an unusual structure that features voids of significant dimension. Such voids should affect other observable properties of this liquid. Here we present temperature-dependent, optical Kerr effect data for tetrahydrofuran and a number of related liquids (furan, cyclopentane, tetrahydropyran, cyclohexane, diethyl ether, and n-pentane) as well as hexamethylphosphoramide to test whether this technique can be used to reveal the presence of sizable voids in liquids.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Qin
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhong
authors.forename: John T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Fourkas