Solvated electrons at the water-air interface: surface versus bulk signal in low kinetic energy photoelectron spectroscopy

Spectroscopy and dynamics of the hydrated electron at the water/air interface

The hydrated electron, e-(aq), has attracted much attention as a central species in radiation chemistry. However, much less is known about e-(aq) at the water/air surface, despite its fundamental role in electron transfer processes at interfaces. Using time-resolved electronic sum-frequency generation spectroscopy, the electronic spectrum of e-(aq) at the water/air interface and its dynamics are measured here, following photo-oxidation of the phenoxide anion. The spectral maximum agrees with that for bulk e-(aq) and shows that the orbital density resides predominantly within the aqueous phase, in agreement with supporting calculations. In contrast, the chemistry of the interfacial hydrated electron differs from that in bulk water, with e-(aq) diffusing into the bulk and leaving the phenoxyl radical at the surface. Our work resolves long-standing questions about e-(aq) at the water/air interface and highlights its potential role in chemistry at the ubiquitous aqueous interface.

The Back Door to the Surface Hydrated Electron

We use a Mg+ metal to extend the size regime of aqueous clusters to extrapolate to the bulk limit of the vertical detachment energy (VDE) of the solvated electron to >3,200, a value between 1 to over 2 orders of magnitude larger than the one previously measured experimentally or computed theoretically. We relate the VDE to the energy difference between the Mg+(H2O)n and Mg2+(H2O)n systems and the metal's second ionization potential. The extrapolated bulk VDEs of the localized surface electron, which moves away from the metal as n increases, are 1.89 ± 0.01 eV for semiempirical (n ∼ 3,200; PM6-D3H4) and 1.73 ± 0.03 eV (n ∼ 150; HF) and 1.83 ± 0.02 eV (n ∼ 150; MP2) for ab initio, in excellent agreement with the 1.6-1.8 eV range of experimental results. The VDEs converge from above (larger values) to the bulk limit, in a manner that is qualitatively opposite from previous studies and experiments lacking a charged metal, a fact justifying the "back door" approach to the solvated electron.

Creation and Reaction of Solvated Electrons at and near the Surface of Water

Solvated electrons (e_s^-) are among nature's most powerful reactants, with over 2600 reactions investigated in bulk water. These electrons can also be created at and near the surface of water by exposing an aqueous microjet in vacuum to gas-phase sodium atoms, which ionize into e_s^- and Na⁺ within the top few layers. When a reactive surfactant is added to the jet, the surfactant and e_s^- become coreactants localized in the interfacial region. We report the reaction of e_s^- with the surfactant benzyltrimethylammonium in a 6.7 M LiBr/water microjet at 235 K and pH = 2. The reaction intermediates trimethylamine (TMA) and benzyl radical are identified by mass spectrometry after they evaporate from solution into the gas phase. Their detection demonstrates that TMA can escape before it is protonated and benzyl before it combines with itself or a H atom. Diffusion-reaction calculations indicate that e_s^- reacts on average within 20 Å of the surface and perhaps within the surfactant monolayer itself, while unprotonated TMA evaporates from the top 40 Å. The escape depth exceeds 1300 Å for the more slowly reacting benzyl radical. These proof-of-principle experiments establish an approach for exploring the near-interfacial analogues of aqueous bulk-phase radical chemistry through the evaporation of reaction intermediates into the gas phase.

Distortion Correction of Low-Energy Photoelectron Spectra of Liquids Using Spectroscopic Data for Solvated Electrons

Time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (TRPES) enables real-time observation of ultrafast electronic dynamics in solutions. When extreme ultraviolet (EUV) probe pulses are employed, they can ionize solutes from all electronic states involved in the dynamics. However, EUV pulses also produce a strong ionization signal from a solvent that is typically 6 orders of magnitude greater than the pump-probe photoelectron signal of solutes. Alternatively, UV probe pulses enable highly sensitive and selective observation of photoexcited solutes because typical solvents such as water are transparent to UV radiation. An obstacle in such UV-TRPES measurements is spectral distortion caused by electron scattering and a yet to be identified mechanism in liquids. We have previously proposed the spectral retrieval (SR) method as an a posteriori approach to removing the distortion and overcoming this difficulty in UV-TRPES; however, its accuracy has not yet been verified by comparison with EUV-TRPES results. In the present study, we perform EUV-TRPES for charge transfer reactions in water, methanol, and ethanol, and verify SR analysis of UV-TRPES. We also estimate a previously undetermined energy-dependent intensity factor and expand the basis sets for SR analysis. The refined SR method is employed for reanalyzing the UV-TRPES data for the formation and relaxation dynamics of solvated electrons in various systems. The electron binding energy distributions for solvated electrons in liquid water, methanol, and ethanol are confirmed to be Gaussian centered at 3.78, 3.39, and 3.25 eV, respectively, in agreement with Nishitani et al. [ Sci. Adv. 2019, 5(8), eaaw6896]. An effective energy gap between the conduction band and the vacuum level at the gas-liquid interface is estimated to be 0.2 eV for liquid water and 0.1 eV for methanol and ethanol.

Nonadiabatic Dynamics Studied by Liquid-Jet Time-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy

The development of the liquid microjet technique by Faubel and co-workers has enabled the investigation of high vapor pressure liquids and solutions utilizing high-vacuum methods. One such method is photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), which allows one to probe the electronic properties of a sample through ionization in a state-specific manner. Liquid microjets consisting of pure solvents and solute-solvent systems have been studied with great success utilizing PES and, more recently, time-resolved PES (TRPES). Here, we discuss progress made over recent years in understanding the solvation and excited state dynamics of the solvated electron and nucleic acid constituents (NACs) using these methods, as well as the prospect for their future.The solvated electron is of particular interest in liquid microjet experiments as it represents the simplest solute system. Despite this simplicity, there were still many unresolved questions about its binding energy and excited state relaxation dynamics that are ideal problems for liquid microjet PES. In the work discussed in this Account, accurate binding energies were measured for the solvated electron in multiple high vapor pressure solvents. The advantages of liquid jet PES were further highlighted in the femtosecond excited state relaxation studies on the solvated electron in water where a 75 ± 20 fs lifetime attributable to internal conversion from the excited p-state to a hot ground state was measured, supporting a nonadiabatic relaxation mechanism.Nucleic acid constituents represent a class of important solutes with several unresolved questions that the liquid microjet PES method is uniquely suited to address. As TRPES is capable of tracking dynamics with state-specificity, it is ideal for instances where there are multiple excited states potentially involved in the dynamics. Time-resolved studies of NAC relaxation after excitation using ultraviolet light identified relaxation lifetimes from multiple excited states. The state-specific nature of the TRPES method allowed us to identify the lack of any signal attributable to the ¹nπ* state in thymine derived NACs. The femtosecond time resolution of the technique also aided in identifying differences between the excited state lifetimes of thymidine and thymidine monophosphate. These have been interpreted, aided by molecular dynamics simulations, as an influence of conformational differences leading to a longer excited state lifetime in thymidine monophosphate.Finally, we discuss advances in tabletop light sources extending into the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray regimes that allow expansion of liquid jet TRPES to full valence band and potentially core level studies of solutes and pure liquids in liquid microjets. As most solutes have ground state binding energies in the range of 10 eV, observation of both excited state decay and ground state recovery using ultraviolet pump-ultraviolet probe TRPES has been intractable. With high-harmonic generation light sources, it will be possible to not only observe complete relaxation pathways for valence level dynamics but to also track dynamics with element specificity by probing core levels of the solute of interest.

UV Photoelectron Spectroscopy of Aqueous Solutions

Knowledge of the electronic structure of an aqueous solution is a prerequisite to understanding its chemical and biological reactivity and its response to light. One of the most direct ways of determining electronic structure is to use photoelectron spectroscopy to measure electron binding energies. Initially, photoelectron spectroscopy was restricted to the gas or solid phases due to the requirement for high vacuum to minimize inelastic scattering of the emitted electrons. The introduction of liquid-jets and their combination with intense X-ray sources at synchrotrons in the late 1990s expanded the scope of photoelectron spectroscopy to include liquids. Liquid-jet photoelectron spectroscopy is now an active research field involving a growing number of research groups. A limitation of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of aqueous solutions is the requirement to use solutes with reasonably high concentrations in order to obtain photoelectron spectra with adequate signal-to-noise after subtracting the spectrum of water. This has excluded most studies of organic molecules, which tend to be only weakly soluble. A solution to this problem is to use resonance-enhanced photoelectron spectroscopy with ultraviolet (UV) light pulses (hν ≲ 6 eV). However, the development of UV liquid-jet photoelectron spectroscopy has been hampered by a lack of quantitative understanding of inelastic scattering of low kinetic energy electrons (≲5 eV) and the impact on spectral lineshapes and positions.In this Account, we describe the key steps involved in the measurement of UV photoelectron spectra of aqueous solutions: photoionization/detachment, electron transport of low kinetic energy electrons through the conduction band, transmission through the water-vacuum interface, and transport through the spectrometer. We also explain the steps we take to record accurate UV photoelectron spectra of liquids with excellent signal-to-noise. We then describe how we have combined Monte Carlo simulations of electron scattering and spectral inversion with molecular dynamics simulations of depth profiles of organic solutes in aqueous solution to develop an efficient and widely applicable method for retrieving true UV photoelectron spectra of aqueous solutions. The huge potential of our experimental and spectral retrieval methods is illustrated using three examples. The first is a measurement of the vertical detachment energy of the green fluorescent protein chromophore, a sparingly soluble organic anion whose electronic structure underpins its fluorescence and photooxidation properties. The second is a measurement of the vertical ionization energy of liquid water, which has been the subject of discussion since the first X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurement in 1997. The third is a UV photoelectron spectroscopy study of the vertical ionization energy of aqueous phenol which demonstrates the possibility of retrieving true photoelectron spectra from measurements with contributions from components with different concentration profiles.

Photoionization of the aqueous phase: clusters, droplets and liquid jets

This perspective article reviews specific challenges associated with photoemission spectroscopy of bulk liquid water, aqueous solutions, water droplets and water clusters. The main focus lies on retrieving accurate energetics and photoelectron angular information from measured photoemission spectra, and on the question how these quantities differ in different aqueous environments. Measured photoelectron band shapes, vertical binding energies (ionization energies), and photoelectron angular distributions are influenced by various phenomena. We discuss the influences of multiple energy-dependent electron scattering in aqueous environments, and we discuss different energy referencing methods, including the application of a bias voltage to access absolute energetics of solvent and solute. Recommendations how to account for or minimize the influence of electron scattering are provided. The example of the hydrated electron in different aqueous environments illustrates how one can account for electron scattering, while reliable methods addressing parasitic potentials and proper energy referencing are demonstrated for ionization from the outermost valence orbital of neat liquid water.

Probing Interfacial Effects on Ionization Energies: The Surprising Banality of Anion-Water Hydrogen Bonding at the Air/Water Interface

Liquid microjet photoelectron spectroscopy is an increasingly common technique to measure vertical ionization energies (VIEs) of aqueous solutes, but the interpretation of these experiments is subject to questions regarding sensitivity to bulk versus interfacial solvation environments. We have computed aqueous-phase VIEs for a set of inorganic anions, using a combination of molecular dynamics simulations and electronic structure calculations, with results that are in excellent agreement with experiment regardless of whether the simulation data are restricted to ions at the air/water interface or to those in bulk aqueous solution. Although the computed VIEs are sensitive to ion-water hydrogen bonding, we find that the short-range solvation structure is sufficiently similar in both environments that it proves impossible to discriminate between the two on the basis of the VIE, a conclusion that has important implications for the interpretation of liquid-phase photoelectron spectroscopy. More generally, analysis of the simulation data suggests that the surface activity of soft anions is largely a second or third solvation shell effect, arising from disruption of water-water hydrogen bonds and not from significant changes in first-shell anion-water hydrogen bonding.

Size-Resolved Electron Solvation in Neutral Water Clusters

Cluster-size-resolved ultrafast dynamics of the solvated electron in neutral water clusters with n = 3 to ∼200 molecules are studied with pump–probe time-of-flight mass spectrometry after below band gap excitation. For the smallest clusters, no longer-lived (>100–200 fs) hydrated electrons were detected, indicating a minimum size of n ∼ 14 for being able to sustain hydrated electrons. Larger clusters show a systematic increase of the number of hydrated electrons per molecule on the femtosecond to picosecond time scale. We propose that with increasing cluster size the underlying dynamics is governed by more effective electron formation processes combined with less effective electron loss processes, such as ultrafast hydrogen ejection and recombination. It appears unlikely that any size dependence of the solvent relaxation dynamics would be reflected in the observed time-resolved ion yields.

Below Band Gap Formation of Solvated Electrons in Neutral Water Clusters?

Below band gap formation of solvated electrons in neutral water clusters using pump-probe photoelectron imaging is compared with recent data for liquid water and with above band gap excitation studies in liquid and clusters. Similar relaxation times on the order of 200 fs and 1-2 ps are retrieved for below and above band gap excitation, in both clusters and liquid. The independence of the relaxation times from the generation process indicates that these times are dominated by the solvent response, which is significantly slower than the various solvated electron formation processes. The analysis of the temporal evolution of the vertical electron binding energy and the electron binding energy at half-maximum suggests a dependence of the solvation time on the binding energy.

Probing the Birth and Ultrafast Dynamics of Hydrated Electrons at the Gold/Liquid Water Interface via an Optoelectronic Approach

The hydrated electron has fundamental and practical significance in radiation and radical chemistry, catalysis, and radiobiology. While its bulk properties have been extensively studied, its behavior at solid/liquid interfaces is still unclear due to the lack of effective tools to characterize this short-lived species in between two condensed matter layers. In this study, we develop a novel optoelectronic technique for the characterization of the birth and structural evolution of solvated electrons at the metal/liquid interface with a femtosecond time resolution. Using this tool, we record for the first time the transient spectra (in a photon energy range from 0.31 to 1.85 eV) in situ with a time resolution of 50 fs revealing several novel aspects of their properties at the interface. Especially the transient species show state-dependent optical transition behaviors from being isotropic in the hot state to perpendicular to the surface in the trapped and solvated states. The technique will enable a better understanding of hot electron driven reactions at electrochemical interfaces.

Electron Scattering in Liquid Water and Amorphous Ice: A Striking Resemblance

The lack of accurate low-energy electron scattering cross sections for liquid water is a substantial source of uncertainty in the modeling of radiation chemistry and biology. The use of existing amorphous ice scattering cross sections for the lack of liquid data has been discussed controversially for decades. Here, we compare experimental photoemission data of liquid water with corresponding predictions using amorphous ice cross sections, with the aim of resolving the debate regarding the difference of electron scattering in liquid water and amorphous ice. We find very similar scattering properties in the liquid and the ice for electron kinetic energies up to a few hundred electron volts. The scattering cross sections recommended here for liquid water are an extension of the amorphous ice cross sections. Within the framework of currently available experimental data, our work answers one of the most debated questions regarding electron scattering in liquid water.

Impact of Electron Solvation on Ice Structures at the Molecular Scale

Electron attachment and solvation at ice structures are well-known phenomena. The energy liberated in such events is commonly understood to cause temporary changes at such ice structures, but it may also trigger permanent modifications to a yet unknown extent. We determine the impact of electron solvation on D₂O structures adsorbed on Cu(111) with low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy, two-photon photoemission, and ab initio theory. Solvated electrons, generated by ultraviolet photons, lead not only to transient but also to permanent structural changes through the rearrangement of individual molecules. The persistent changes occur near sites with a high density of dangling OD groups that facilitate electron solvation. We conclude that energy dissipation during solvation triggers permanent molecular rearrangement via vibrational excitation.

The Fluxional Nature of the Hydrated Electron: Energy and Entropy Contributions to Aqueous Electron Free Energies

There has been a great deal of recent controversy over the structure of the hydrated electron and whether it occupies a cavity or contains a significant number of interior waters (noncavity). The questions we address in this work are, from a free energy perspective, how different are these proposed structures? Do the different structures all lie along a single continuum, or are there significant differences (i.e., free energy barriers) between them? To address these questions, we have performed a series of one-electron calculations using umbrella sampling with quantum biased molecular dynamics along a coordinate that directly reflects the number of water molecules in the hydrated electron's interior. We verify that a standard cavity model of the hydrated electron behaves essentially as a hard sphere: the model is dominated by repulsion at short range such that water is expelled from a local volume around the electron, leading to a water solvation shell like that of a pseudohalide ion. The repulsion is much larger than thermal energies near room temperature, explaining why such models exhibit properties with little temperature dependence. On the other hand, our calculations reveal that a noncavity model is highly fluxional, meaning that thermal motions cause the number of interior waters to fluctuate from effectively zero (i.e., a cavity-type electron) to potentially above the bulk water density. The energetic contributions in the noncavity model are still repulsive in the sense that they favor cavity formation, so the fluctuations in structure are driven largely by entropy: the entropic cost for expelling water from a region of space is large enough that some water is still driven into the electron's interior. As the temperature is lowered and entropy becomes less important, the noncavity electron's structure is predicted to become more cavity-like, consistent with the observed temperature dependence of the hydrated electron's properties. Thus, we argue that although the specific noncavity model we study overestimates the preponderance of fluctuations involving interior water molecules, with appropriate refinements to correctly capture the true average number of interior waters and molar solvation volume, a fluxional model likely makes the most sense for understanding the various experimental properties of the hydrated electron.

Alternative Approach for the Determination of Mean Free Paths of Electron Scattering in Liquid Water Based on Experimental Data

Mean free paths of low-energy electrons in liquid water are of importance for modeling many physicochemical processes, but neither theoretical predictions nor experimental results have converged for these parameters. We therefore introduce an approach to determine elastic and inelastic mean free paths (EMFP, IMFP) based on experimental data. We show that ab initio calculations of electron scattering with water clusters converge with cluster size, thus providing access to condensed-phase scattering. The results are used in Monte Carlo simulations to extract EMFP and IMFP from recent liquid-microjet experiments that determined the effective attenuation length (EAL) and the photoelectron angular distribution (PAD) following oxygen 1s-ionization of liquid water. For electron kinetic energies from 10 to 300 eV, we find that the IMFP is noticeably larger than the EAL. The EMFP is longer than that of gas-phase water and the IMFP is longer compared to latest theoretical estimations, but both EMFP and IMFP are much shorter than suggested by experimental measurements of integral cross sections for amorphous ice.

Relaxation Dynamics and Genuine Properties of the Solvated Electron in Neutral Water Clusters

We have investigated the solvation dynamics and the genuine binding energy and photoemission anisotropy of the solvated electron in neutral water clusters with a combination of time-resolved photoelectron velocity map imaging and electron scattering simulations. The dynamics was probed with a UV probe pulse following above-band-gap excitation by an EUV pump pulse. The solvation dynamics is completed within about 2 ps. Only a single band is observed in the spectra, with no indication for isomers with distinct binding energies. Data analysis with an electron scattering model reveals a genuine binding energy in the range of 3.55-3.85 eV and a genuine anisotropy parameter in the range of 0.51-0.66 for the ground-state hydrated electron. All of these observations coincide with those for liquid bulk, which is rather unexpected for an average cluster size of 300 molecules.

Design and characterization of a recirculating liquid-microjet photoelectron spectrometer for multiphoton ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy

A new recirculating liquid-microjet photoelectron spectrometer for multiphoton ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy is described. A recirculating system is essential for studying samples that are only available in relatively small quantities. The reduction in background pressure when using the recirculating system compared to a liquid-nitrogen cold-trap results in a significant improvement in the quality of the photoelectron spectra. Moreover, the recirculating system results in a negligible streaming potential. The instrument design, operation, and characterization are described in detail, and its performance is illustrated by comparing a photoelectron spectrum of aqueous phenol recorded using the recirculating system with one recorded using a liquid nitrogen cold-trap.

Charge-Transfer-to-Solvent Reaction in a Hydrophobic Tetrabutylammonium Iodide Molecular Layer in Aqueous Solution

We present ultrafast photoelectron spectroscopy of the charge-transfer-to-solvent reaction in a segregated TBAI (tetrabutylammonium iodide) molecular layer in aqueous solution. The reaction times and electron binding energies of transient species vary with TBAI concentration from a very low value of 1 × 10^-3 mol L^-1, which is in contrast to NaI solution exhibiting no concentration (0.01-1.0 mol L^-1) dependence. The result from soft X-ray N(1s) spectroscopy indicates that the photoelectron intensity in TBAI aqueous solution is about 70 times enhanced as compared to that in NH₄Cl aqueous solution for an identical salt concentration, and TBA⁺ drags I^- to the surface region. At high TBAI concentrations, electrons released from I^- are trapped and held in the TBAI molecular layer owing to electrostatic attraction by TBA⁺.

Structure of the aqueous electron

A cavity or excluded-volume structure best explains the experimental properties of the aqueous or “hydrated” electron.

Low-energy electron inelastic mean free paths for liquid water

We improve the Mermin-Penn algorithm (MPA) for determining the energy loss function (ELF) within the dielectric formalism. The present algorithm is applicable not only to real metals, but also to materials that have an energy gap in the excitation spectrum. Applying the improved MPA to liquid water, we show that the present algorithm is able to address the ELF overestimation at the energy gap, and the calculated results are in good agreement with experimental data.

Genuine binding energy of the hydrated electron

The unknown influence of inelastic and elastic scattering of slow electrons in water has made it difficult to clarify the role of the solvated electron in radiation chemistry and biology. We combine accurate scattering simulations with experimental photoemission spectroscopy of the hydrated electron in a liquid water microjet, with the aim of resolving ambiguities regarding the influence of electron scattering on binding energy spectra, photoelectron angular distributions, and probing depths. The scattering parameters used in the simulations are retrieved from independent photoemission experiments of water droplets. For the ground-state hydrated electron, we report genuine values devoid of scattering contributions for the vertical binding energy and the anisotropy parameter of 3.7 ± 0.1 eV and 0.6 ± 0.2, respectively. Our probing depths suggest that even vacuum ultraviolet probing is not particularly surface-selective. Our work demonstrates the importance of quantitative scattering simulations for a detailed analysis of key properties of the hydrated electron.

Size-Resolved Photoelectron Anisotropy of Gas Phase Water Clusters and Predictions for Liquid Water

We report the first measurements of size-resolved photoelectron angular distributions for the valence orbitals of neutral water clusters with up to 20 molecules. A systematic decrease of the photoelectron anisotropy is found for clusters with up to 5-6 molecules, and most remarkably, convergence of the anisotropy for larger clusters. We suggest the latter to be the result of a local short-range scattering potential that is fully described by a unit of 5-6 molecules. The cluster data and a detailed electron scattering model are used to predict the anisotropy of slow photoelectrons in liquid water. Reasonable agreement with experimental liquid jet data is found.

Low energy electron attenuation lengths in core–shell nanoparticles

A velocity map imaging spectrometer is used to measure photoemission from free core–shell nanoparticles, where a salt core is coated with a liquid hydrocarbon shell (i.e. squalane).

Short-Range Electron Correlation Stabilizes Noncavity Solvation of the Hydrated Electron

The hydrated electron, e^-_(aq), has often served as a model system to understand the influence of condensed-phase environments on electronic structure and dynamics. Despite over 50 years of study, however, the basic structure of e^-_(aq) is still the subject of controversy. In particular, the structure of e^-_(aq) was long assumed to be an electron localized within a solvent cavity, in a manner similar to halide solvation. Recently, however, we suggested that e^-_(aq) occupies a region of enhanced water density with little or no discernible cavity. The potential we developed was only subtly different from those that give rise to a cavity solvation motif, which suggests that the driving forces for noncavity solvation involve subtle electron-water attractive interactions at close distances. This leads to the question of how dispersion interactions are treated in simulations of the hydrated electron. Most dispersion potentials are ad hoc or are not designed to account for the type of close-contact electron-water overlap that might occur in the condensed phase, and where short-range dynamic electron correlation is important. To address this, in this paper we develop a procedure to calculate the potential energy surface between a single water molecule and an excess electron with high-level CCSD(T) electronic structure theory. By decomposing the electron-water potential into its constituent energetic contributions, we find that short-range electron correlation provides an attraction of comparable magnitude to the mean-field interactions between the electron and water. Furthermore, we find that by reoptimizing a popular cavity-forming one-electron model potential to better capture these attractive short-range interactions, the enhanced description of correlation predicts a noncavity e^-_(aq) with calculated properties in better agreement with experiment. Although much attention has been placed on the importance of long-range dispersion interactions in water cluster anions, our study reveals that largely unexplored short-range correlation effects are crucial in dictating the solvation structure of the condensed-phase hydrated electron.

Free Energies of Cavity and Noncavity Hydrated Electrons Near the Instantaneous Air/Water Interface

The properties of the hydrated electron at the air/water interface are computed for both a cavity and a noncavity model using mixed quantum/classical molecular dynamics simulation. We take advantage of our recently developed formalism for umbrella sampling with a restrained quantum expectation value to calculate free-energy profiles of the hydrated electron's position relative to the water surface. We show that it is critical to use an instantaneous description of the air/water interface rather than the Gibbs' dividing surface to obtain accurate potentials of mean force. We find that noncavity electrons, which prefer to encompass several water molecules, avoid the interface where water molecules are scarce. In contrast, cavity models of the hydrated electron, which prefer to expel water, have a local free-energy minimum near the interface. When the cavity electron occupies this minimum, its absorption spectrum is quite red-shifted, its binding energy is significantly lowered, and its dynamics speed up quite a bit compared with the bulk, features that have not been found by experiment. The surface activity of the electron therefore serves as a useful test of cavity versus noncavity electron solvation.

Partially Hydrated Electrons at the Air/Water Interface Observed by UV-Excited Time-Resolved Heterodyne-Detected Vibrational Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy

Hydrated electrons are the most fundamental anion species, consisting only of electrons and surrounding water molecules. Although hydrated electrons have been extensively studied in the bulk aqueous solutions, even their existence is still controversial at the water surface. Here, we report the observation and characterization of hydrated electrons at the air/water interface using new time-resolved interface-selective nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy. With the generation of electrons at the air/water interface by ultraviolet photoirradiation, we observed the appearance of a strong transient band in the OH stretch region by heterodyne-detected vibrational sum-frequency generation. Through the comparison with the time-resolved spectra at the air/indole solution interface, the transient band was assigned to the vibration of water molecules that solvate electrons at the interface. The analysis of the frequency and decay of the observed transient band indicated that the electrons are only partially hydrated at the water surface, and that they escape into the bulk within 100 ps.

Hydrated Electrons in Water Clusters: Inside or Outside, Cavity or Noncavity?

In this work, we compare the applicability of three electron–water molecule pseudopotentials in modeling the physical properties of hydrated electrons. Quantum model calculations illustrate that the recently suggested Larsen–Glover–Schwartz (LGS) model and its modified m-LGS version have a too-attractive potential in the vicinity of the oxygen. As a result, LGS models predict a noncavity hydrated electron structure in clusters at room temperature, as seen from mixed one-electron quantum–classical molecular dynamics simulations of water cluster anions, with the electron localizing exclusively in the interior of the clusters. Comparative calculations using the cavity-preferring Turi–Borgis (TB) model predict interior-state and surface-state cluster isomers. The computed associated physical properties are also analyzed and compared to available experimental data. We find that the LGS and m-LGS potentials provide results that appear to be inconsistent with the size dependence of the experimental data. The simulated TB tendencies are qualitatively correct. Furthermore, ab initio calculations on static LGS noncavity structures indicate weak stabilization of the excess electron in regions where the LGS potential preferably and strongly binds the electron. TB calculations give stabilization energies that are in line with the ab initio results. In conclusion, we observe that the cavity-preferring pseudopotential model predicts cluster physical properties in better agreement with experimental data and ab initio calculations than the models predicting noncavity structures for the hydrated electron.

Resolving Nonadiabatic Dynamics of Hydrated Electrons Using Ultrafast Photoemission Anisotropy

We have studied ultrafast nonadiabatic dynamics of excess electrons trapped in the band gap of liquid water using time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Anisotropic photoemission from the first excited state was discovered, which enabled unambiguous identification of nonadiabatic transition to the ground state in 60 fs in H_{2}O and 100 fs in D_{2}O. The photoelectron kinetic energy distribution exhibited a rapid spectral shift in ca. 20 fs, which is ascribed to the librational response of a hydration shell to electronic excitation. Photoemission anisotropy indicates that the electron orbital in the excited state is depolarized in less than 40 fs.

Valence Electronic Structure of Aqueous Solutions: Insights from Photoelectron Spectroscopy

The valence orbital electron binding energies of water and of embedded solutes are crucial quantities for understanding chemical reactions taking place in aqueous solution, including oxidation/reduction, transition-metal coordination, and radiation chemistry. Their experimental determination based on liquid-photoelectron spectroscopy using soft X-rays is described, and we provide an overview of valence photoelectron spectroscopy studies reported to date. We discuss principal experimental aspects and several theoretical approaches to compute the measured binding energies of the least tightly bound molecular orbitals. Solutes studied are presented chronologically, from simple electrolytes, via transition-metal ion solutions and several organic and inorganic molecules, to biologically relevant molecules, including aqueous nucleotides and their components. In addition to the lowest vertical ionization energies, the measured valence photoelectron spectra also provide information on adiabatic ionization energies and reorganization energies for the oxidation (ionization) half-reaction. For solutes with low solubility, resonantly enhanced ionization provides a promising alternative pathway.

Angle-Resolved Photoemission of Solvated Electrons in Sodium-Doped Clusters

Angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy of the unpaired electron in sodium-doped water, methanol, ammonia, and dimethyl ether clusters is presented. The experimental observations and the complementary calculations are consistent with surface electrons for the cluster size range studied. Evidence against internally solvated electrons is provided by the photoelectron angular distribution. The trends in the ionization energies seem to be mainly determined by the degree of hydrogen bonding in the solvent and the solvation of the ion core. The onset ionization energies of water and methanol clusters do not level off at small cluster sizes but decrease slightly with increasing cluster size.

Excited-state relaxation of hydrated thymine and thymidine measured by liquid-jet photoelectron spectroscopy: experiment and simulation

Time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy is performed on thymine and thymidine in aqueous solution to study the excited-state relaxation dynamics of these molecules. We find two contributions with sub-ps lifetimes in line with recent excited-state QM/MM molecular dynamics simulations (J. Chem. Phys. 2013, 139, 214304). The temporal evolution of ionization energies for the excited ππ* state along the QM/MM molecular dynamics trajectories were calculated and are compatible with experimental results, where the two contributions correspond to the relaxation paths in the ππ* state involving different conical intersections with the ground state. Theoretical calculations also show that ionization from the nπ* state is possible at the given photon energies, but we have not found any experimental indication for signal from the nπ* state. In contrast to currently accepted relaxation mechanisms, we suggest that the nπ* state is not involved in the relaxation process of thymine in aqueous solution.

Charge transfer to solvent dynamics in iodide aqueous solution studied at ionization threshold

The population of charge-transfer-to-solvent states in iodide aqueous solution can undergo via non-resonant multiphoton electronic excitation above the vacuum level.

Time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of hydrated electrons near a liquid water surface

We present time- and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of trapped electrons near liquid surfaces. Photoemission from the ground state of a hydrated electron at 260 nm is found to be isotropic, while anisotropic photoemission is observed for the excited states of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2,2,2]octane and I- in aqueous solutions. Our results indicate that surface and subsurface species create hydrated electrons in the bulk side. No signature of a surface-bound electron has been observed.

Relaxation mechanism of the hydrated electron

The relaxation dynamics of the photoexcited hydrated electron have been subject to conflicting interpretations. Here, we report time-resolved photoelectron spectra of hydrated electrons in a liquid microjet with the aim of clarifying ambiguities from previous experiments. A sequence of three ultrashort laser pulses (~100 femtosecond duration) successively created hydrated electrons by charge-transfer-to-solvent excitation of dissolved anions, electronically excited these electrons via the s→p transition, and then ejected them into vacuum. Two distinct transient signals were observed. One was assigned to the initially excited p-state with a lifetime of ~75 femtoseconds, and the other, with a lifetime of ~400 femtoseconds, was attributed to s-state electrons just after internal conversion in a nonequilibrated solvent environment. These assignments support the nonadiabatic relaxation model.

Photoelectron angular distributions from liquid water: effects of electron scattering

Photoelectron angular distributions (PADs) from the liquid-water surface and from bulk liquid water are reported for water oxygen-1s ionization. Although less so than for the gas phase, the measured PADs from the liquid are remarkably anisotropic, even at electron kinetic energies lower than 100 eV, when elastic scattering cross sections for the outgoing electrons with other water molecules are large. The PADs reveal that theoretical estimates of the inelastic mean free path are likely too long at low kinetic energies, and hence the electron probing depth in water, near threshold ionization, appears to be considerably smaller than so far assumed.