Short-time microscopic dynamics of aqueous methanol solutions

Abstract

In this paper we present the picosecond vibrational dynamics of a series of methanol aqueous solutions over a wide concentration range from dense to dilute solutions. We studied the vibrational dephasing and vibrational frequency modulation by calculating the time correlation functions of vibrational relaxation by fits in the frequency domain. This method is applied to aqueous methanol solutions xMeOH–(1 − x)H2O, where x = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1. The important finding is that the vibrational dynamics of the system become slower with increasing methanol concentration. The removal of many-body effects by having the molecules in less-crowded environments seems to be the key factor. The interpretation of the vibrational correlation function in the context of Kubo theory, which is based on the assumption that the environmental modulation arises from a single relaxation process and applied to simple liquids, is inadequate for all solutions studied. We found that the vibrational correlation functions of the solutions over the whole concentration range comply with the Rothschild approach, assuming that the environmental modulation is described by a stretched exponential decay. The evolution of the dispersion parameter α with dilution indicates the deviation of the solutions from the model simple liquid and the results are discussed in the framework of the current phenomenological status of the field.