Directly visualizing hydrogen bonds

Using a newly developed, ultrafast femtosecond infrared light source, chemists at the University of Chicago have been able to directly visualize the coordinated vibrations between hydrogen-bonded molecules -- the first time this sort of chemical interaction, which is found in nature everywhere at the molecular level, has been directly visualized. They describe their experimental techniques and observations in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing.

"These two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy techniques provide a new avenue to directly visualize both hydrogen bond partners," said Andrei Tokmakoff, the lab's primary investigator. "They have the spectral content and bandwidth to really interrogate huge parts of the vibrational spectrum of molecules. It's opened up the ability to look at how very different types of vibrations on different molecules interact with one another."