Quantum theory of time-resolved femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy: direct versus cascade processes and application to CDCl3

Mapping Structural Dynamics of Proteins with Femtosecond Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy

The structure-function relationships of biomolecules have captured the interest and imagination of the scientific community and general public since the field of structural biology emerged to enable the molecular understanding of life processes. Proteins that play numerous functional roles in cellular processes have remained in the forefront of research, inspiring new characterization techniques. In this review, we present key theoretical concepts and recent experimental strategies using femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS) to map the structural dynamics of proteins, highlighting the flexible chromophores on ultrafast timescales. In particular, wavelength-tunable FSRS exploits dynamic resonance conditions to track transient-species-dependent vibrational motions, enabling rational design to alter functions. Various ways of capturing excited-state chromophore structural snapshots in the time and/or frequency domains are discussed. Continuous development of experimental methodologies, synergistic correlation with theoretical modeling, and the expansion to other nonequilibrium, photoswitchable, and controllable protein systems will greatly advance the chemical, physical, and biological sciences.

Utilizing Microcavities To Suppress Third-Order Cascades in Fifth-Order Raman Spectra

Nonlinear optical signals in the condensed phase are often accompanied by sequences of lower-order processes, known as cascades, which share the same phase matching and power dependence on the incoming fields and are thus hard to distinguish. The suppression of cascading in order to reveal the desired nonlinear signal has been a major challenge in multidimensional Raman spectroscopy, that is, the χ⁽⁵⁾ signal being masked by cascading signals given by a product of two χ⁽³⁾ processes. Because cascading originates from the exchange of a virtual photon between molecules, it can be manipulated by performing the experiment in an optical microcavity which modifies the density of radiation field modes. Using a quantum electrodynamical (QED) treatment, we demonstrate that the χ⁽³⁾ cascading contributions can be greatly suppressed. By optimizing the cavity size and the incoming pulse directions, we show that up to ∼99.5% suppression of the cascading signal is possible.

Highly Selective Relaxation of the OH Stretching Overtones in Isolated HDO Molecules Observed by Infrared Pump-Repump-Probe Spectroscopy

A quantitative investigation of the relaxation dynamics of higher-lying vibrational states is afforded by a novel method of infrared pump-repump-probe spectroscopy. The technique is used to study the dynamics of OH stretching overtones in NaClO4·HDO monohydrate. We observe a continuous decrease of the energy separation for the first four states, i.e. v01 = 3575 cm(-1), v12 = 3370 cm(-1), and v23 = 3170 cm(-1), respectively. The population lifetime of the first excited state is 7.2 ps, while the one of the second excited state is largely reduced to 1.4 ps. The relaxation of the v = 2 state proceeds nearly quantitatively to the v = 1 state. The new information on the OH stretching overtones demands improved theoretical potentials and modeling of the H bond interactions. This work shows the potential of the new technique for the precise study of complex vibrational relaxation pathways.

Dynamics of the time-resolved stimulated Raman scattering spectrum in presence of transient vibronic inversion of population on the example of optically excited trans-β-apo-8'-carotenal

We have studied the effect of transient vibrational inversion of population in trans-β-apo-8(')-carotenal on the time-resolved femtosecond stimulated Raman scattering (TR-FSRS) signal. The experimental data are interpreted by applying a quantum mechanical approach, using the formalism of projection operators for constructing the theoretical model of TR-FSRS. Within this theoretical frame we explain the presence of transient Raman losses on the Stokes side of the TR-FSRS spectrum as the effect of vibrational inversion of population. In view of the obtained experimental and theoretical results, we conclude that the excited S2 electronic level of trans-β-apo-8(')-carotenal relaxes towards the S0 ground state through a set of four vibrational sublevels of S1 state.

Stochastic Liouville equations for femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy

Electron and vibrational dynamics of molecules are commonly studied by subjecting them to two interactions with a fast actinic pulse that prepares them in a nonstationary state and after a variable delay period T, probing them with a Raman process induced by a combination of a broadband and a narrowband pulse. This technique, known as femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS), can effectively probe time resolved vibrational resonances. We show how FSRS signals can be modeled and interpreted using the stochastic Liouville equations (SLE), originally developed for NMR lineshapes. The SLE provide a convenient simulation protocol that can describe complex dynamics caused by coupling to collective bath coordinates at much lower cost than a full dynamical simulation. The origin of the dispersive features that appear when there is no separation of timescales between vibrational variations and the dephasing time is clarified.

Femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy of the cyclobutane thymine dimer repair mechanism: a computational study

Cyclobutane thymine dimer, one of the major lesions in DNA formed by exposure to UV sunlight, is repaired in a photoreactivation process, which is essential to maintain life. The molecular mechanism of the central step, i.e., intradimer C-C bond splitting, still remains an open question. In a simulation study, we demonstrate how the time evolution of characteristic marker bands (C═O and C═C/C-C stretch vibrations) of cyclobutane thymine dimer and thymine dinucleotide radical anion, thymidylyl(3'→5')thymidine, can be directly probed with femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS). We construct a DFT(M05-2X) potential energy surface with two minor barriers for the intradimer C₅-C₅' splitting and a main barrier for the C₆-C₆' splitting, and identify the appearance of two C₅═C₆ stretch vibrations due to the C₆-C₆' splitting as a spectroscopic signature of the underlying bond splitting mechanism. The sequential mechanism shows only absorptive features in the simulated FSRS signals, whereas the fast concerted mechanism shows characteristic dispersive line shapes.

Cascading and local-field effects in non-linear optics revisited: a quantum-field picture based on exchange of photons

The semi-classical theory of radiation-matter coupling misses local-field effects that may alter the pulse time-ordering and cascading that leads to the generation of new signals. These are then introduced macroscopically by solving Maxwell's equations. This procedure is convenient and intuitive but ad hoc. We show that both effects emerge naturally by including coupling to quantum modes of the radiation field that are initially in the vacuum state to second order. This approach is systematic and suggests a more general class of corrections that only arise in a QED framework. In the semi-classical theory, which only includes classical field modes, the susceptibility of a collection of N non-interacting molecules is additive and scales as N. Second-order coupling to a vacuum mode generates an effective retarded interaction that leads to cascading and local field effects both of which scale as N(2).

Femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy using a scanning multichannel technique

A scanning multichannel technique (SMT) has been implemented in femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy (FSRS). By combining several FSRS spectra detected at slightly different positions of the spectrograph via SMT, we have eliminated the systematic noise patterns ("fixed pattern noise") due to the variation in sensitivity and noise characteristics of the individual charge-coupled device (CCD) pixels. In nonresonant FSRS, solvent subtraction can effectively remove the systematic noise pattern even without SMT. However, in the case of resonant FSRS, we show that a similar solvent subtraction procedure is ineffective at removing the noise patterns without SMT. Application of SMT results in averaged FSRS spectra with improved signal-to-noise ratios that approach the shot-noise limit.