Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.138, No.42, 14057-14065, 2016
Orientational Dynamics of a Functionalized Alkyl Planar Monolayer Probed by Polarization-Selective Angle-Resolved Infrared Pump-Probe Spectroscopy
Polarization-selective angle-resolved infrared pump probe spectroscopy was developed and used to study the orientational dynamics of a planar allcylsiloxane monolayer functionalized with a rhenium metal carbonyl headgroup on an SiO2 surface. The technique, together with a time-averaged infrared linear dichroism measurement, characterized pico-second orientational relaxation of the headgroup occurring at the monolayer air interface by employing several sets of incident angles of the infrared pulses relative to the sample surface. By application of this method and using a recently developed theory, it was possible to extract both the out-of plane and "mainly"-in-plane orientational correlation functions in a model-independent manner. The observed correlation functions were compared with theoretically derived correlation functions based on several dynamical models. The out-of-plane correlation function reveals the highly restricted out-of-plane motions of the head groups and also suggests that the angular distribution of the transition dipole moments is bimodal. The mainly-in-plane correlation function, for the sample studied here with the strongly restricted out-of-plane motions, essentially arises from the purely in-plane dynamics. In contrast to the out-of-plane dynamics, significant in-plane motions occurring over various time scales were observed including an inertial motion, a restricted wobbling motion of similar to 3 ps, and complete randomization occurring in similar to 25 ps.