Watching Vibrational Energy Transfer in Liquids with Atomic Spatial Resolution

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Abstract
Ultrafast spectroscopy was used to study vibrational energy transfer between vibrational reporter groups on different parts of a molecule in a liquid. When OH stretching vibrations of different alcohols were excited by mid-infrared laser pulses, vibrational energy was observed to move through intervening CH 2 or CH groups, taking steps up and down in energy, ending up at terminal CH 3 groups. For each additional CH 2 group in the path between OH and CH 3 , the time for vibrational energy transfer increased by about 0.4 picosecond.