title: Geometry determination of complexes in a molecular liquid mixture using electron-vibration-vibration two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy with a vibrational transition density cube method.
abstract: We demonstrate the use of a new vibrational transition density cube (VTDC) method for determining the geometry of complexes in a molecular liquid mixture from electron-vibration-vibration two-dimensional infrared (EVV 2DIR) spectra. The VTDC method was used to calculate the electrically-mediated intermolecular vibrational coupling and thereby the EVV 2DIR spectra. Using the 1:1 benzonitrile-phenylacetylene (BN-PA) liquid mixture as a test case, the new method leads to a distance of 3.60 Å between the interacting BN-PA pair, a much more accurate value than the distance previously obtained using a dipolar approximation for the electrical coupling. We also show that molecular dynamics simulations of the liquid mixture predict a modal geometry of complexation which agrees well with the geometry determined from the 2DIR data via VTDC analysis. We therefore conclude the combination of VTDC and EVV 2DIR data is a useful approach for the determination of the geometry of molecular complexes in the condensed phase.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Chemical Biology, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Shaul
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mukamel
authors.forename: David R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Klug
mesh_terms: D000114:Acetylene / Q000031:analogs & derivatives* / Q000737:chemistry; D004583:Electrons; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D009570:Nitriles / Q000737:chemistry*; D013055:Spectrophotometry, Infrared / Q000379:methods
chemical_list: D009570:Nitriles; C044736:phenylacetylene; C014356:benzonitrile; D000114:Acetylene