Infrared Spectroscopy of Cation-Molecular Interactions

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In this award, funded by the Experimental Physical Chemistry program, Professor Michael Duncan of the University of Georgia and his students will study complexes containing singly charged ions of magnesium, calcium, aluminum and silicon and small molecules such as nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water. In addition, Duncan and his group will investigate complexes of multiply charged metal ions and protonated molecular clusters. These species will be produced in supersonic laser beams by pulsed-laser vaporization, mass-selected with a time-of-flight spectrometer, and their structures and condensation dynamics studied using infrared photodissociation (IRPD) spectroscopy. The experiments will probe ion-molecule interactions and determine the structures of large clusters. Experimental work will be combined with high-level computations to improve our understanding of the interactions between metal ions and small molecules. A major effort of the current project will be the extension of the IRPD technique to lower energies, providing "fingerprint" spectra for a wider variety of complexes, ranging from ions bound to a single molecule to complexes containing twenty or more molecules.This work improves our knowledge of the interactions between metal ions and small molecules and will have a broader impact in biochemistry and in understanding the chemistry of metals ions in the atmosphere. The project also provides excellent training for graduate and postdoctoral researchers in experimental and computational physical chemistry.