No Arabic abstract
Hydrogen bond (H-bond) covalency has recently been observed in ice and liquid water, while the penetrating molecular orbitals (MOs) in the H-bond region of most typical water dimer system, (H2O)2, have also been discovered. However, obtaining the quantitative contribution of these MOs to the H-bond interaction is still problematic. In this work, we introduced the orbital-resolved electron density projected integral (EDPI) along the H-bond to approach this problem. The calculations show that, surprisingly, the electronic occupied orbital (HOMO-4) of (H2O)2 accounts for about 40% of the electron density at the bond critical point. Moreover, the charge transfer analysis visualizes the electron accumulating effect of the orbital interaction within the H-bond between water molecules, supporting its covalent-like character. Our work expands the classical understanding of H-bond with specific contributions from certain MOs, and will also advance further research into such covalency and offer quantitative electronic structure insights into intermolecular systems.
The covalent-like characteristics of hydrogen bonds offer a new perspective on intermolecular interactions. Here, using density functional theory and post-Hartree-Fock methods, we reveal that there are two bonding molecular orbitals (MOs) crossing the O and H atoms of the hydrogen-bond in water dimer. Energy decomposition analysis also shows a non-negligible contribution of the induction term. These results illustrate the covalent-like character of the hydrogen bond between water molecules, which contributes to the essential understanding of ice, liquid water, related materials, and life sciences.
The structural properties of the uranium-encapsulated nano-cage U@Au14 are predicted using density functional theory. The presence of the uranium atom makes the Au14 structure more stable than the empty Au14-cage, with a triplet ground electronic state for U@Au14. Analysis of the electronic structure shows that the two frontier single-occupied molecular orbital electrons of U@Au14 mainly originate from the 5f shell of the U atom after charge transfer. Meanwhile, the bonding orbitals have both the 5f and 6d components of the U atom, along with the 5d and 6s components of the Au atoms, indicating the covalent nature of the interaction between the U and Au atoms. Moreover, the charge population analysis shows that this nanostructure displays some unique electronic properties where the encapsulated atom gains electrons while the outer shell loses electrons. Therefore, this designed U@Au14 nano-cage structure is stabilized by ionocovalent interactions. The current findings provide theoretical basis for future syntheses and further study of actinide doped gold nanoclusters, which might subsequently facilitate applications of such structure in radio-labeling, nanodrug carrier and other biomedical applications.
Water clusters embedding a nitric acid molecule HNO3(H2O)_{n=1-10} are investigated via electrostatic deflection of a molecular beam. We observe large paraelectric susceptibilities that greatly exceed the electronic polarizability, revealing the contribution of permanent dipole moments. The moments derived from the data are also significantly higher than those of pure water clusters. An enhancement in the susceptibility for n=5,6 and a rise in cluster abundances setting in at n=6 suggest that dissociation of the solvated acid molecule into ions takes place in this size range.
Energy dissipation in water is very fast and more efficient than in many other liquids. This behavior is commonly attributed to the intermolecular interactions associated with hydrogen bonding. Here, we investigate the dynamic energy flow in the hydrogen-bond network of liquid water by a pump-probe experiment. We resonantly excite intermolecular degrees of freedom with ultrashort single-cycle terahertz pulses and monitor its Raman response. By using ultrathin sample-cell windows, a background-free bipolar signal whose tail relaxes mono-exponentially is obtained. The relaxation is attributed to the molecular translational motions, using complementary experiments, force-field and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. They reveal an initial coupling of the terahertz electric field to the molecular rotational degrees of freedom whose energy is rapidly transferred, within the excitation pulse duration, to the restricted-translational motion of neighboring molecules. This rapid energy transfer may be rationalized by the strong anharmonicity of the intermolecular interactions.
Using synchrotron radiation we simultaneously ionize and excite one helium atom of a helium dimer (He_2) in a shakeup process. The populated states of the dimer ion (i.e. He^[*+](n = 2; 3)-He) are found to deexcite via interatomic coulombic decay. This leads to the emission of a second electron from the neutral site and a subsequent coulomb explosion. In this letter we present a measurement of the momenta of fragments that are created during this reaction. The electron energy distribution and the kinetic energy release of the two He^+ ions show pronounced oscillations which we attribute to the structure of the vibrational wave function of the dimer ion.