Strong frequency dependence of vibrational relaxation in bulk and surface water reveals sub-picosecond structural heterogeneity
Sietse T. van der Post, Cho-Shuen Hsieh, Masanari Okuno, Yuki Nagata, Huib J. Bakker, Mischa Bonn & Johannes Hunger
Affiliations Contributions Corresponding authors
Nature Communications 6, Article number: 8384 doi:10.1038/ncomms9384
Received 29 May 2015 Accepted 17 August 2015 Published 18 September 2015
Abstract
Because of strong hydrogen bonding in liquid water, intermolecular interactions between water molecules are highly delocalized. Previous two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy experiments have indicated that this delocalization smears out the structural heterogeneity of neat H2O. Here we report on a systematic investigation of the ultrafast vibrational relaxation of bulk and interfacial water using time-resolved infrared and sum-frequency generation spectroscopies. These experiments reveal a remarkably strong dependence of the vibrational relaxation time on the frequency of the OH stretching vibration of liquid water in the bulk and at the air/water interface. For bulk water, the vibrational relaxation time increases continuously from 250 to 550 fs when the frequency is increased from 3,100 to 3,700 cm−1. For hydrogen-bonded water at the air/water interface, the frequency dependence is even stronger. These results directly demonstrate that liquid water possesses substantial structural heterogeneity, both in the bulk and at the surface.
Subject terms: Physical sciences Physical chemistry Condensed matter Fluids and plasma physics
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