Tracking water dimers in ambient nanocapsules by vibrational spectroscopy.

ABSTRACT: Nanoconfined few-molecule water clusters are invaluable systems to study fundamental aspects of hydrogen bonding. Unfortunately, most experiments on water clusters must be performed at cryogenic temperatures. Probing water clusters in noncryogenic systems is however crucial to understand the behavior of confined water in atmospheric or biological settings, but such systems usually require either complex synthesis and/or introduce many confounding external bonds to the clusters. Here, we show that combining Raman spectroscopy with the molecular nanocapsule cucurbituril is a powerful technique to sequester and analyze water clusters in ambient conditions. We observe sharp peaks in vibrational spectra arising from a single rigid confined water dimer. The high resolution and rich information i

SUBMITTER: Hwang AY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9894256 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature