Condensed-phase media

McMorrow D and Lotshaw W T 1990 The frequency response of condensed-phase media to femtosecond optical pulses spectral-filter effects Cham. Phys. Lett. 174 85-94... 

As a conclusion, our experimental/simulation study of the supercritical Ar solvent response, upon a Rydberg transition, reveals a highly non-linear character of the medium reorganisation. Simple model systems, such as the one used here, may provide a working basis for the development of a formal description of the non-linear response in condensed phase media. 

The two-state model (TSM) provides a very basic description of quantum transitions in condensed-phase media. It limits the manifold of the electronic states of the donor-acceptor complex to only two states participating in the transition. In this section, the TSM will be explored analytically in order to reveal several important properties of ET and CT reactions. The gas-phase Hamiltonian of the TSM reads... 

To apply the Forster equation, the emission and absorption line shapes must be identical for all donors and acceptors, respectively. However, in many types of condensed-phase media (e.g., glasses, crystals, proteins, surfaces), each of the donors and acceptors lie in a different local environment, which leads to a distribution of static offsets of the excitation energies relative to the average, which persists longer than the time scale for EET. When such inhomogeneous contributions to the line broadening become significant, Forster theory cannot be used in an unmodified form [16, 63]. 

A distinction must be made between truly isolated molecules which react in the absence of any collision with other molecules, as in the gas phase at very low pressures or in molecular beams, and molecules in liquid or solid environments. A condensed phase medium, liquid or solid, imposes a cage effect which can prevent large geometrical changes in rearrangement reactions, and the separation of fragments in dissociation reactions. 

A factor k, called the transmission coefficient, is often introduced k = KVg) to account for observed deviations from the simple rate theory. When the reaction occurs in a condensed-phase medium, or in complex systems, k <. ... 

Excited-State Relaxation. A further photophysical topic of intense interest is pathways for thermal relaxation of excited states in condensed phases. According to the Franck-Condon principle, photoexcitation occurs with no concurrent relaxation of atomic positions in space, either of the photoexcited chromophore or of the solvating medium. Subsequent to excitation, but typically on the picosecond time scale, atomic positions change to a new equihbrium position, sometimes termed the (28)- Relaxation of the solvating medium is often more dramatic than that of the chromophore... 

It is known that the interaction of the reactants with the medium plays an important role in the processes occurring in the condensed phase. This interaction may be separated into two parts (1) the interaction with the degrees of freedom of the medium which, together with the intramolecular degrees of freedom, represent the reactive modes of the system, and (2) the interaction between the reactive and nonreactive modes. The latter play the role of the thermal bath. The interaction with the thermal bath leads to the relaxation of the energy in the reaction system. Furthermore, as a result of this interaction, the motion along the reactive modes is a complicated function of time and, on average, has stochastic character. 

The brief review of the newest results in the theory of elementary chemical processes in the condensed phase given in this chapter shows that great progress has been achieved in this field during recent years, concerning the description of both the interaction of electrons with the polar medium and with the intramolecular vibrations and the interaction of the intramolecular vibrations and other reactive modes with each other and with the dissipative subsystem (thermal bath). The rapid development of the theory of the adiabatic reactions of the transfer of heavy particles with due account of the fluctuational character of the motion of the medium in the framework of both dynamic and stochastic approaches should be mentioned. The stochastic approach is described only briefly in this chapter. The number of papers in this field is so great that their detailed review would require a separate article. 

As mentioned previously, this can be attributed in part to the lack of structure-sensitive techniques that can operate in the presence of a condensed phase. Ultrahigh-vacuum (UHV) surface spectroscopic techniques such as low-energy electron diffraction (LEED), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), and others have been applied to the study of electrochemical interfaces, and a wealth of information has emerged from these ex situ studies on well-defined electrode surfaces.15"17 However, the fact that these techniques require the use of UHV precludes their use for in situ studies of the electrode/solution interface. In addition, transfer of the electrode from the electrolytic medium into UHV introduces the very serious question of whether the nature of the surface examined ex situ has the same structure as the surface in contact with the electrolyte and under potential control. Furthermore, any information on the solution side of the interface is, of necessity, lost. 

Fermi (1940) pointed out that as /)—-1 the stopping power would power would approach °° were it not for the fact that polarization screening of one medium electron by another reduced the interaction slightly. This effect is important for the condensed phase and is therefore called the density correction it is denoted by adding -Z<5/2 to the stopping number. Fano s (1963) expression for 8 reduces at high velocities to... 

On the other hand, one has to take into account the influence of the surrounding which must induce an irreversible evolution of the H-bond system when its fast mode is excited the fast mode may be directly damped by the medium that is the direct relaxation mechanism. It may be also damped through the slow mode to which it is anharmonically coupled, that is the indirect relaxation mechanism. A schematical illustration of these two damping mechanism is given in Fig. 2. Of course, the role played by damping must be more important for H bonds in condensed phase. 

The separation of a reactant system (solute) from its environment with the consequent concept of solvent or surrounding medium effect on the electronic properties of a given subsystem of interest as general as the quantum separability theorem can be. With its intrinsic limitations, the approach applies to the description of specific reacting subsystems in their particular active sites as they can be found in condensed phase and in media including the rather specific environments provided by enzymes, catalytic antibodies, zeolites, clusters or the less structured ones found in non-aqueous and mixed solvents [1,3,6,8,11,12,14-30],... 

An interesting problem arises when we consider solutions or colloidal sols where the diffusing component is much larger in size than the solute molecules. In dilute systems Equation (1.14) would give an adequate value of the Peclet number but not so when the system becomes concentrated, i.e. the system itself becomes a condensed phase. The interactions between the diffusing component slow the motion and, as we shall see in detail in Chapter 3, increase the viscosity. The appropriate dimensionless group should use the system viscosity and not that of the medium and now becomes... 

Because an important reason for studying ionic reactions in the gas phase, rather than in the condensed phase, is to eliminate the strong moderating effects of the solvent, it is generally desirable that the buffer gas serve only as a chemically inert physical medium in which the reactants are suspended and thermalized. In the VHP... 

Electron attachment to O2 has been investigated in supercritical hydrocarbon fluids at densities up to about 10 molecules/cm using the pulsed electric conductivity technique [110], and the results have been explained in terms of the effect of the change in the electron potential energy and the polarization energy of 2 in the medium fluids. In general, electron attachment to O2 is considered to be a convenient probe to explore electron dynamics in the condensed phase. 

Ionization of atoms or molecules is the main primary event induced by the interaction of radiations with condensed matter. The charged species produced by ionization, if not removed from the irradiated system, will naturally tend to recombine. The conventional theories of recombination treat the transport and reactions of charged species only after the electrons ejected from atoms or molecules become thermalized by dissipating their initially high kinetic energies to the surrounding medium and form a spatial distribution around their parent cations. The thermalization in condensed phases is fast and is usually... 

In the wet oxidation process, materials partially or completely dissolve into a homogeneous, condensed-phase mixture of oxygen and water, and chemical reactions between the material and oxygen take place in the bulk water phase. This condensed-phase makes wet oxidation an ideal process to transform materials which would otherwise be non-soluble in water to a harmless mixture of carbon dioxide and water. Since oxidation reactions are also exothermic, the high thermal mass of supercritical water makes this reaction medium better suited for thermal control, reactor stability, and heat dissipation. The purpose of this research was to establish a new method for selectively oxidizing waste hydrocarbons into new and reusable products. 

Formation of 2D phase accompanying electrochemical reduction of 4,4 -pyridine on mercury in the presence of iodide ions occurred via adsorption-nucleation and reorientation-nucleation mechanisms [139]. The first reduction step of Bpy on Hg in the presence of iodide as counterion in acidic medium at 15 involved the BpyH2 " /BpyH couple and led to the formation of a 2D phase. The increased contribution of the reorientation term in the formation of the condensed phase was consistent with the increased adsorption strength of the anion to the electrode surface. 

When structural and dynamical information about the solvent molecules themselves is not of primary interest, the solute-solvent system may be made simpler by modeling the secondary subsystem as an infinite (usually isotropic) medium characterized by the same dielecttic constant as the bulk solvent, that is, a dielectric continuum. Theoretical interpretation of chemical reaction rates has a long history already. Until recently, however, only the chemical reactions of systems containing a few atoms in the gas phase could be studied using molecular quantum mechanics due to computational expense. Fortunately, very important advances have been made in the power of computer-simulation techniques for chemical reactions in the condensed phase, accompanied by an impressive progress in computer speed (Gonzalez-Lafont et al., 1996). 

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