The structures and properties of ionic clusters - Scott Hopkins

Infrared multiple photon dissociation (IRMPD) spectroscopy, when combined with high level density functional theory, has emerged as a powerful tool for measuring the vibrational spectra of ionic species. However, much of the IRMPD work that has been reported to date has focused on determining geometric structure and has spent relatively little effort on studying other physicochemical properties. Over the past few years, we have begun utilizing IRMPD as a tool to control mode-selectively the energy disposal and subsequent unimolecular decomposition of molecular clusters and complexes by taking advantage of IR-induced transparency and hindered intramolecular vibrational energy redistribution (IVR). This seminar will describe the current state-of-the-art and discuss some of our recent progress in this area using examples of amino acid-containing clusters and catalytic palladium complexes.