Vibrational lifetimes and frequency-gap law of hydrogen bending modes in semiconductors

Ruthenium hydrides encapsulated in sol–gel glasses exhibit new ultrafast vibrational dynamics

Vibrational dynamics were measured by IR pump–probe spectroscopy and two-dimensional IR spectroscopy for triruthenium dodecacarbonyl and the undecacarbonyl hydride that forms when it is encapsulated in an alumina sol–gel glass. For comparison, a triruthenium undecacarbonyl hydride salt was also synthesized and studied in neat solution to identify the potential influence of the confined solvent environment on the dynamics experienced by carbon monoxide ligands. The vibrational lifetime was found to be significantly decreased for both hydride species relative to the dodecacarbonyl compound. Conversely, spectral diffusion of the CO vibrations was measured to be faster for the parent compound. The most significant dynamic changes occurred upon transformation from the starting compound to the hydride, while only minor differences were observed between the dynamics of the freely dissolved and sol–gel encapsulated hydrides. The results suggest that the structural change to the hydride has the largest impact on the dynamics and that its improved catalytic properties likely do not originate from confined solvent effects.

Temperature dependence of phonon-defect interactions: phonon scattering vs. phonon trapping

The interactions between thermal phonons and defects are conventionally described as scattering processes, an idea proposed almost a century ago. In this contribution, ab-initio molecular-dynamics simulations provide atomic-level insight into the nature of these interactions. The defect is the Si|X interface in a nanowire containing a δ-layer (X is C or Ge). The phonon-defect interactions are temperature dependent and involve the trapping of phonons for meaningful lengths of time in defect-related, localized, vibrational modes. No phonon scattering occurs and the momentum of the phonons released by the defect is unrelated to the momentum of the phonons that generated the excitation. The results are extended to the interactions involving only bulk phonons and to phonon-defect interactions at high temperatures. These do resemble scattering since phonon trapping occurs for a length of time short enough for the momentum of the incoming phonon to be conserved.

Giant enhancement of hydrogen transport in rutile TiO2 at low temperatures

Measurements of the O-H and O-D vibrational lifetimes show that the room-temperature hydrogen diffusion rate in rutile TiO2 can be enhanced by 9 orders of magnitude when stimulated by resonant infrared light. We find that the local oscillatory motion of the proton quickly couples to a wag-mode-assisted classical transfer process along the c channel with a jump rate of greater than 1 THz and a barrier height of 0.2 eV. This increase in proton transport rate at moderate temperatures provides new insight into hydrogen transport in solids, which could play a role in applications ranging from fuel cells to hydrogen production.

Resonant interaction between hydrogen vibrational modes in AlSb:Se

Vibrational modes and their interactions affect numerous physical processes in condensed-matter systems. In the present work, hydrogen vibrations in Se-doped AlSb were investigated with first-principles calculations. Vibrational frequencies were calculated for the longitudinal, transverse, wag (bending), and stretch modes of the Al-H complex. The Al-H stretch mode interacts with a combination mode involving a wag overtone and transverse fundamental. This resonant interaction yields vibrational states that are linear superpositions of the stretch mode and the combination mode. The spatial extent of such excitations is significantly larger than that of a local vibrational mode.

Proton tunneling: a decay channel of the O-H stretch mode in KTaO3

The vibrational lifetimes of the O-H and O-D stretch modes in the perovskite oxide KTaO3 are measured by pump-probe infrared spectroscopy. Both stretch modes are exceptionally long lived and exhibit a large "reverse" isotope effect, due to a phonon-assisted proton-tunneling process, which involves the O-Ta-O bending motion. The excited-state tunneling rate is found to be 7 orders of magnitude larger than from the ground state in the proton conducting oxide, BaCeO3 [Phys. Rev. B 60, R3713 (1999)].

Isotope dependence of the lifetime of the vibration of oxygen in silicon

By simply changing the isotopes of the Si atoms that neighbor an oxygen Oi atom in crystalline silicon, the measured decay rate tau of the asymmetric-stretch vibration (nu3=1136 cm-1) of oxygen (Oi) in silicon changes by a factor of approximately 2.5. These data establish that nu3 decays by creating one nu1 symmetric-stretch, local-vibrational mode of the Si-Oi-Si structure. If the residual energy (nu3-nu1) is less than the maximum frequency num of the host lattice, as for 28Si-16O-28Si in natural silicon, then it is emitted as one lattice mode, and tau depends on the density of one-phonon states at nu3-nu1. If (nu3-nu1)>num, as for 16O in single-isotope 30Si silicon, two lattice modes are created in addition to nu1, increasing tau. Prediction of tau for a particular defect clearly requires a detailed knowledge of that defect.