Small IR probe molecules have been found to be useful to measure local electric fields in condensed phases and proteins and also to study nucleic acid and protein structure and dynamics by monitoring their vibrational couplings and frequency shifts. However, it is still difficult to accurately describe the vibrational solvatochromic frequency shifts of such IR probes, because the local electric...

We characterize the influence of graphene nanoribbon plasmon excitation on the vibrational spectra of surface-absorbed polymers. As the detuning between the graphene plasmon frequency and a vibrational frequency of the polymer decreases, the vibrational peak intensity first increases and is then transformed into a region of narrow optical transparency as the frequencies overlap. Examples of thi...

Time-resolved sum frequency generation (tr-SFG) reveals that the vibrational energy relaxation rate of O-H stretching of dilute HDO in D(2)O at the silica interface is markedly different from that of bulk water. As compared to the bulk liquid, the vibrational lifetime (T(1)) of HDO is shorter at the charged surface than in the bulk, but longer at the neutral surface. The vibrational decoupling ...

Hot carriers at metal surfaces can drive nonthermal reactions of adsorbates. Characterizing nonequilibrium statistics among various degrees of freedom in an ultrafast time scale is crucial to understand and develop hot carrier-driven chemistry. Here we demonstrate multidimensional vibrational dynamics of carbon monoxide (CO) on Cu(100) along hot-carrier induced desorption studied by using time-...

Using analytical excited-state gradients, vibrational normal modes have been calculated at the minimum of the electronic excited-state potential energy surfaces for a set of extended conjugated molecules with different coupling between them. Molecular model systems composed of units of polyphenylene ethynylene (PPE), polyphenylenevinylene (PPV), and naphthacene/pentacene (NP) have been consider...

We have shown that electromagnetically induced transparency can be achieved by control-probe interferometry using two delayed phase-locked ultrashort pulses. Two vibrational wavepackets on the excited state, excited by two delayed phase-locked ultrashort pulses, interfere constructively or destructively leading to enhancement or suppression of absorption to a selective set of vibrational levels...