Modes of normal vibrations

Until 1962 the infrared and Raman spectra of thiazole in the liquid state were described by some authors (173, pp. 194-200) with only fragmentary assignments. At that date Chouteau et al. (201) published the first tentative interpretation of the whole infrared spectrum between 4000 and 650 cm for thiazole and some alkyl and haloderivatlves. They proposed a complete assignment of the normal modes of vibration of the molecule. 

The study of the infrared spectrum of thiazole under various physical states (solid, liquid, vapor, in solution) by Sbrana et al. (202) and a similar study, extended to isotopically labeled molecules, by Davidovics et al. (203, 204), gave the symmetry properties of the main vibrations of the thiazole molecule. More recently, the calculation of the normal modes of vibration of the molecule defined a force field for it and confirmed quantitatively the preceeding assignments (205, 206). 

An A-atomic molecule has 3A — 5 normal modes of vibration if it is linear, and 3A — 6 if it is non-linear these expressions were derived in Section 4.3.1. 

A normal mode of vibration is one in which all the nuclei undergo harmonic motion, have the same frequency of oscillation and move in phase but generally with different amplitudes. Examples of such normal modes are Vj to V3 of H2O, shown in Figure 4.15, and Vj to V41, of NH3 shown in Figure 4.17. The arrows attached to the nuclei are vectors representing the relative amplitudes and directions of motion. 

Figure 6.33 Three normal modes of vibration of ethylene...

Normal modes of vibration, with their corresponding normal coordinates, are very satisfactory in describing the low-lying vibrational levels, usually those with u = 1 or 2, which can be investigated by traditional infrared absorption or Raman spectroscopy. For certain types of vibration, particularly stretching vibrations involving more than one symmetrically equivalent terminal atom, this description becomes less satisfactory as v increases. 

The CO2 laser is a near-infrared gas laser capable of very high power and with an efficiency of about 20 per cent. CO2 has three normal modes of vibration Vj, the symmetric stretch, V2, the bending vibration, and V3, the antisymmetric stretch, with symmetry species (t+, ti , and (7+, and fundamental vibration wavenumbers of 1354, 673, and 2396 cm, respectively. Figure 9.16 shows some of the vibrational levels, the numbering of which is explained in footnote 4 of Chapter 4 (page 93), which are involved in the laser action. This occurs principally in the 3q22 transition, at about 10.6 pm, but may also be induced in the 3oli transition, at about 9.6 pm. 

If the displacements of the atoms are given in terms of the harmonic normal modes of vibration for the crystal, the coherent one-phonon inelastic neutron scattering cross section can be analytically expressed in terms of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the hannonic analysis, as described in Ref. 1. 

In this paper, we review progress in the experimental detection and theoretical modeling of the normal modes of vibration of carbon nanotubes. Insofar as the theoretical calculations are concerned, a carbon nanotube is assumed to be an infinitely long cylinder with a mono-layer of hexagonally ordered carbon atoms in the tube wall. A carbon nanotube is, therefore, a one-dimensional system in which the cyclic boundary condition around the tube wall, as well as the periodic structure along the tube axis, determine the degeneracies and symmetry classes of the one-dimensional vibrational branches [1-3] and the electronic energy bands[4-12]. 

The 180° trans structure is only about 2.5 kcal/mol higher in energy than the 0° conformation, a barrier which is quite a bit less than one would expect for rotation about the double bond. We note that this structure is a member of the point group. Its normal modes of vibration, therefore, will be of two types the symmetrical A and the non-symmetrical A" (point-group symmetry is maintained in the course of symmetrical vibrations). 

There are many different solutions for X1 and X2 to this pair of coupled equations, but it proves possible to find two particularly simple ones called normal modes of vibration. These have the property that both particles execute simple harmonic motion at the same angular frequency. Not only that, every possible vibrational motion of the two particles can be described in terms of the normal modes, so they are obviously very important. 

Figure 1.3 Figure for discussion of normal modes of vibration... 

In order to find the normal modes of vibration, I am going to write the above equations in matrix form, and then find the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a certain matrix. In matrix form, we write... 

The minimum of t/ocs corresponds to the equilibrium geometry, and it is very easy to see that it corresponds to l cs = 153.5 pm and J co = 112.8 pm. We might have suspected from our study of normal modes of vibration that the two vibrations would not be independent of each other, so our first guess at a triatomic potential is not very profitable. 

This is clearly a matrix eigenvalue problem the eigenvalues determine tJie vibrational frequencies and the eigenvectors are the normal modes of vibration. Typical output is shown in Figure 14.10, with the mass-weighted normal coordinates expressed as Unear combinations of mass-weighted Cartesian displacements making up the bottom six Unes. 

In many of the normal modes of vibration of a molecule the main participants in the vibration will be two atoms held together by a chemical bond. These vibrations have frequencies which depend primarily on the masses of the two vibrating atoms and on the force constant of the bond between them. The frequencies are also slightly affected by other atoms attached to the two atoms concerned. These vibrational modes are characteristic of the groups in the molecule and are useful in the identification of a compound, particularly in establishing the structure of an unknown substance. 

In general, the first excited state (i.e. the final state for a fundamental transition) is described by a wavefunction pt which has the same symmetry as the normal coordinate (Appendix). The normal coordinate is a mathematical description of the normal mode of vibration. 

Each normal mode of vibration can be described by a normal coordinate Qi which is a linear combination of nuclear displacement coordinates of the molecule. For the symmetric stretching vibration vi of C02, the normal coordinate is of the form... 

A nonlinear molecule consisting of N atoms can vibrate in 3N — 6 different ways, and a linear molecule can vibrate in 3N — 5 different ways. The number of ways in which a molecule can vibrate increases rapidly with the number of atoms a water molecule, with N = 3, can vibrate in 3 ways, but a benzene molecule, with N = 12, can vibrate in 30 different ways. Some of the vibrations of benzene correspond to expansion and contraction of the ring, others to its elongation, and still others to flexing and bending. Each way in which a molecule can vibrate is called a normal mode, and so we say that benzene has 30 normal modes of vibration. Each normal mode has a frequency that depends in a complicated way on the masses of the atoms that move during the vibration and the force constants associated with the motions involved (Fig. 2). 

Assuming that a reasonable force field is known, the solution of the above equations to obtain the vibrational frequencies of water is not difficult However, in more complicated molecules it becomes very rapidly a formidable one. If there are N atoms in the molecule, there are 3N total degrees of freedom and 3N-6 for the vibrational frequencies. The molecular symmetry can often aid in simplifying the calculations, although in large molecules there may be no true symmetry. In some cases the notion of local symmetry can be introduced to simplify the calculation of vibrational frequencies and the corresponding forms of the normal modes of vibration. 

It is apparent from Fig. 4 that the normal modes of vibration of the water molecule, as calculated from the eigenvectors, can be described approximately as a symmetrical stretching vibration (Mj) and a symmetrical bending vibration... 

The results obtained above for a diatomic molecule can be generalized for polyatomic molecules. Each of the 3N-6 normal modes of vibration (or 3N-5 for linear molecules) will contribute an energy given by an expression analogous to Eq. (63), namely,... 

This condition on the so-called secular determinant is the basis of the vibrational problem. The roots of Eq. (59), X, are the eigenvalues of the matrix product GF, while the columns of L, the eigenvectors, determine the forms of the normal modes of vibration. These relatively abstract relations become more evident with the consideration of an example. 

It has been shown that the potential energy distribution provides an approximate method to evaluate the relative contribution of each symmetry coordinate to a given normal mode of vibration. From the definition of the symmetry coordinates, the relation... 

To find the atomic displacements for each normal mode of vibration, use is made of Eqs. (45) and (53),... 

Hybrid following in ammonia and phosphine We might expect that a general displacement from equilibrium nuclear geometry (such as that associated with a normal mode of vibration) could also lead to bond... 

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