Motion groups

The relaxation map of PMMA obtained from E" and s" is shown in Fig. 111. It shows a good agreement between the two types of investigations, in agreement with the fact that the same motional groups are involved in the response of both techniques. 

There is a rule of mutual exclusion, which states In a molecule with a center of symmetry, a normal mode that is seen in the infrared spectrum will not be seen in the Raman spectrum, and vice versa. The normal modes of carbon dioxide illustrate this rule. In molecules with more than three atoms, it is sometimes possible to determine whether a normal mode will be Raman active or IR active by inspection of the normal mode motions. Group theory is often used to simplify the analysis. ... 

Klein and co-workers have documented the remarkable lubricating attributes of polymer brushes tethered to surfaces by one end only [56], Studying zwitterionic polystyrene-X attached to mica by the zwitterion end group in a surface forces apparatus, they found /i < 0.001 for loads of 100 and speeds of 15-450 nm/sec. They attributed the low friction to strong repulsions existing between such polymer layers. At higher compression, stick-slip motion was observed. In a related study, they compared the friction between polymer brushes in toluene (ji < 0.005) to that of mica in pure toluene /t = 0.7 [57]. 

Polyatomic molecules vibrate in a very complicated way, but, expressed in temis of their normal coordinates, atoms or groups of atoms vibrate sinusoidally in phase, with the same frequency. Each mode of motion functions as an independent hamionic oscillator and, provided certain selection rules are satisfied, contributes a band to the vibrational spectr um. There will be at least as many bands as there are degrees of freedom, but the frequencies of the normal coordinates will dominate the vibrational spectrum for simple molecules. An example is water, which has a pair of infrared absorption maxima centered at about 3780 cm and a single peak at about 1580 cm (nist webbook). 

Before considering other concepts and group-theoretical machinery, it should once again be stressed that these same tools can be used in symmetry analysis of the translational, vibrational and rotational motions of a molecule. The twelve motions of NH3 (three translations, three rotations, six vibrations) can be described in terms of combinations of displacements of each of the four atoms in each of three (x,y,z) directions. Hence, unit vectors placed on each atom directed in the x, y, and z directions form a basis for action by the operations S of the point group. In the case of NH3, the characters of the resultant 12x12 representation matrices form a reducible representation... 

It is common to use the symbols v(X-Y), i5(X-Y) and y(X-Y) for stretching, in-plane bending and out-of-plane bending, respectively, in the X-Y group. In addition, the word deformation is often used to imply a bending motion. 

In addition to the descriptions of group vibrations as stretch and bend (or deformation) the terms rock, twist, scissors, wag, torsion, ring breathing and inversion (or umbrella) are used frequently these motions are illustrated in Figure 6.13. 

As in Section 5.2.4 on rotational spectra of asymmetric rotors, we do not treat this important group of molecules in any detail, so far as their rotational motion is concerned, because of the great complexity of their rotational energy levels. Nevertheless, however complex the stack associated with the v = 0 level, there is a very similar stack associated with each excited vibrational level. The selection mles for transitions between the rotational stacks of the vibrational levels are also complex but include... 

---