2D IRSpectroscopy of the C–D stretching vibration of the deuterated formic acid dimer

Abstract

We report transient grating and 2D IR spectra of the C–D stretching vibration of deuterated formic acid dimer. The C–D stretching transition is perturbed by an accidental Fermi resonance interaction that gives rise to a second transition. The transient grating results show that the population lifetime of these states, which are in rapid equilibrium, is 11 ps. 2D IR spectroscopy reveals the energies of the eigenstates in the regions of one quantum and two quanta of C–D stretching excitation. Using these eigenstate energies, we construct a simplified model for the zeroth-order states that we then use to simulate the 2D IR spectrum. The results of this simulation suggest that the model captures the essential features of the vibrational spectroscopy in the region of the C–D stretching transition and compares well with previous gas-phase spectroscopy of the C–D stretch of deuterated formic acid dimer.