arXiv subjects

Loni Kringle

Publications and source records attributed to Loni Kringle.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Translational diffusion in supercooled water at and near the glass transition temperature -- 136 K

The properties of amorphous solid water at and near the calorimetric glass transition temperature, $T_{g}$, of 136 K have been debated for years. One hypothesis is that water turns into a "true" liquid at $T_{g}$ (i.e., it becomes ergodic) and exhibits all the characteristics of an ergodic liquid, including translational diffusion. A competing hypothesis is that only rotational motion becomes active at $T_{g}$, while the "real" glass transition in water is at a considerably higher temperature. To address this dispute, we have investigated the diffusive mixing in nanoscale water films, with thicknesses up to ~100 nm, using infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The experiments used films that were composed of at least 90% $H_{2}O$ with $D_{2}O$ making up the balance and were conducted in conditions where H/D exchange was essentially eliminated. Because the IR spectra of multilayer $D_{2}O$ films (e.g., thicknesses of ~3 - 6 nm) embedded within thick $H_{2}O$ films are distinct from the spectrum of isolated $D_{2}O$ molecules within $H_{2}O$, the diffusive mixing of (initially) isotopically layered water films could be followed as a function of annealing time and temperature. The results show that water films with total thicknesses ranging from ~20 to 100 nm diffusively mixed prior to crystallization for temperatures between 120 and 144 K. The translational diffusion had an Arrhenius temperature dependence with an activation energy of 40.8 kJ/mol, which indicates that water at and near $T_{g}$ is a strong liquid. The measured diffusion coefficient at 136 K is 6.25 x 10$^{-21} m^{2}/s$.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2019

Reversible structural transformations in supercooled water from 135 to 245 K

Water has many anomalous properties compared to "simple" liquids, and these anomalies are typically enhanced in supercooled water. While numerous models have been proposed, including the liquid-liquid critical point, the singularity-free scenario, and the stability limit conjecture, a molecular-level understanding remains elusive.The main difficulty in determining which, if any, of these models is correct is the limited amount of data in the relevant temperature and pressure ranges. For water at ambient pressures, which is the focus of this work, data is largely missing from 160 - 232 K due to rapid crystallization. Whether rapid crystallization is just an experimental obstacle, or a fundamental problem signaling the inability of water to thermally equilibrate prior to crystallization is also a major unanswered question. Here, we investigate the structural transformations of transiently-heated, supercooled water with nanosecond time resolution using infrared vibrational spectroscopy. The experiments demonstrate three key results. First, water's structure relaxes from its initial configuration to a "steady-state" configuration prior to the onset of crystallization over a wide temperature range. Second, water's steady-state structure can be reproduced by a linear combination of two, temperature-independent structures that correspond to a "high-temperature liquid" and a "low-temperature liquid." Third, the observed structural changes are reversible over the full temperature range. Taken together, these results show that supercooled water can equilibrate prior to crystallization for temperatures from the homogeneous nucleation temperature down to the glass transition temperature. Second, the results provide support for the hypothesis that supercooled water can be described as a mixture of two, structurally-distinct, interconvertible liquids from 135 K to 245 K.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2018

Temperature-dependent conformations of exciton-coupled Cy3 dimers in double-stranded DNA

Understanding the properties of electronically interacting molecular chromophores, which involve internally coupled electronic-vibrational motions, is important to the spectroscopy of many biologically relevant systems. Here we apply linear absorption, circular dichroism (CD), and two-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy (2DFS) to study the polarized collective excitations of excitonically coupled cyanine dimers (Cy3)2 that are rigidly positioned within the opposing sugar-phosphate backbones of the double-stranded region of a double-stranded (ss) - single-stranded (ss) DNA fork construct. We show that the exciton-coupling strength of the (Cy3)2-DNA construct can be systematically varied with temperature below the ds - ss DNA denaturation transition. We interpret spectroscopic measurements in terms of the Holstein vibronic dimer model, from which we obtain information about the local conformation of the (Cy3)2 dimer, as well as the degree of static disorder experienced by the Cy3 monomer and the (Cy3)2 dimer probe locally within their respective DNA duplex environments. The properties of the (Cy3)2-DNA construct we determine suggest that it may be employed as a useful model system to test fundamental concepts of protein-DNA interactions, and the role of electronic-vibrational coherence in electronic energy migration within exciton-coupled bio-molecular arrays.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2015

Isolation of coherent and incoherent nonlinear spectroscopic signals by phase modulation

We investigate the effect of phase modulation of laser beams on the coherent and incoherent non-linear signals arising from the interaction of femtosecond pulses with matter. We observe that two collinear beams, whose phases are modulated by frequencies $ϕ_1$ and $ϕ_2$, produce two second harmonic signals from non-linear crystals whose intensities at the detector are modulated at the frequencies $ϕ_2-ϕ_1$ and $2(ϕ_2-ϕ_1)$. We also observe that an incoherent action signal, such as fluorescence and photocurrent, which arises from the absorption of two photons, is modulated at the same frequencies as in the case of second harmonic generation. We present a theoretical analysis to explain our observations. These results are important to understand how phase modulation techniques can be used to isolate different field-matter interaction pathways in a non-linear process. Because the method uses modulation of the signal intensity rather than wave-vector matching to isolate different signals, it could be useful to perform multi-photon absorption studies on single molecules or nanoparticles.

physics.optics↗