Understanding the structure and dynamic of odorants in the gas phase using a combination of microwave spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations

Abstract

This tutorial is an introduction for PhD students and researchers who intend to start their future work in the field of microwave spectroscopy to investigate structural and dynamical aspects of isolated molecular systems in the gas phase. Although the presented case studies are related to odorants, i.e., volatile molecules that possess a noticeable scent, the background and applications of the method can be transferred to any other resembling molecular system. In the early days, microwave spectroscopy was mainly related to the structure determination of very small systems such as OCS or ammonia, where the bond lengths could be determined with high accuracy by measuring the different isotopic species of the molecules. Nowadays, the method is far more advanced and is also used to tackle various fundamental molecular problems in different fields such as physical chemistry and molecular physics. Interesting questions that can be investigated concern, e.g., the molecular structure, i.e., the different conformations, not only of the isolated molecule but also of van der Waals complexes with water, noble gases or other molecules. The dynamical and intra- or intermolecular effects can be straightforwardly observed without the influence of the environment as in the condensed phase. This evolution was only achieved by using quantum chemical methods as a complementary tool to elude the necessity of isotopologues for structure determination, which cannot be realized for large systems (>5 atoms). The combination of microwave spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations is the method of choice when it comes to sampling the conformational space of molecules. This is particularly the case when small energy differences make it difficult to determine the conformers of the lowest energy using computational methods alone. Although quantum chemical calculations are important for the validation of microwave spectra, the focus of the tutorial is set on the experimental part of the method, as the quantum chemical part of the work is restrained on geometry optimizations using common methods, mainly Møller–Plesset second order perturbation theory and density functional theory. The aim of this tutorial is therefore to give the reader an overview on the theoretical background and the experimental setup of microwave spectroscopy, as well as a realistic estimation on the effort required to conduct similar projects.