The C[double bond, length as m-dash]O/C[triple bond, length as m-dash]N stretching vibration arising from a carbonyl/nitrile functional group in various molecular systems has been frequently used to assess, for example, local hydrogen-bonding interactions, among other applications. However, in practice it is not always easy to ascertain whether the carbonyl or nitrile group in question is engag...

The earliest stages of phase separation in a liquid triethylamine (TEA)-water mixture were observed using a picosecond IR laser pulse to produce a temperature jump and ultrafast Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectral changes in the water OH stretching region showed that the temperature rise induced by IR pulses equilibrated within a few tens of picoseconds. Amplitude changes in the TEA CH-stretchin...

This thesis explores the physics of weakly interacting colloid-polymer mixtures. Colloid-polymer mixtures can consist of two kinds of interactions; depletion and adsorption. Both interactions can lead to colloidal aggregation and formation of space spanning gels that can bear stress. Depending on the range of the attractive interaction, depletion gels bear stress by two mechanisms; bond-stretch...

Controlled chemical reaction of single trans-2-butene molecules on the Pd(110) surface was realized by dosing tunneling electrons from the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope at 4.7 K. The reaction product was identified as a 1,3-butadiene molecule by inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy. Threshold voltage for the reaction is approximately 365 mV, which coincides with the vibrational ex...

Raman and infrared spectra of three well-defined turquoise samples, CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O, from Lavender Pit, Bisbee, Cochise county, Arizona; Kouroudaiko mine, Faleme river, Senegal and Lynch Station, Virginia were studied, interpreted and compared. Observed Raman and infrared bands were assigned to the stretching and bending vibrations of phosphate tetrahedra, water molecules and hydroxyl ion...

Raman activities and degrees of depolarization are reported for 14 complexes involving methanol, ethanol and water using the MP2/ aug-cc-pVDZ model. For ethanol both trans and gauche isomers are considered. The red-shifts of the OH stretching and the blue shifts of the bending sCO–OH mode were analyzed for the proton-donor molecules upon hydrogen bond. The shift of the mCO stretching mode of th...

Single-molecule force-clamp spectroscopy offers a novel platform for mechanically denaturing proteins by applying a constant force to a polyprotein. A powerful emerging application of the technique is that, by introducing a disulfide bond in each protein module, the chemical kinetics of disulfide bond cleavage under different stretching forces can be probed at the single-bond level. Even at for...

Water plays an important role in the stability of minerals containing the deca and hexavanadates ions. A selection of minerals including pascoite, huemulite, barnesite, hewettite, metahewettite, hummerite has been analysed. Infrared spectroscopy combined with Raman spectroscopy has enabled the spectra of the water HOH stretching bands to be determined. The use of the Libowitsky type function al...