Excited State Nonadiabatic Molecular Dynamics of Hot Electron Addition to Water Clusters in the Ultrafast Femtosecond Regime

Leighton O. Jones, George C. Schatz*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

Dissociative electron attachment (DEA) reactions of water result in the production of hydrogen atoms and hydroxide anions. This has been studied for a long time and is relatively slow in liquid water for thermalized hydrated electrons but much faster with a higher-energy electron. Here, we probe the nonadiabatic molecular dynamics after the addition of a hot electron (6-7 eV) to a neutral water cluster (H2O)n, where n = 2-12, considering the 0-100 fs time scale using the fewest switches surface hopping method, in conjunction with ab initio molecular dynamics and the Tamm-Dancoff approximation density functional theory method. The nonadiabatic DEA occurs within 10-60 fs, and with high probability, giving H + OH- above an energy threshold. This is faster than time scales estimated previously for autoionization or adiabatic DEA. The change in threshold energy with cluster size is modest, ranging from 6.6 to 6.9 eV. Dissociation on a femtosecond time scale is consistent with pulsed radiolysis experiments.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)3521-3526
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Physical Chemistry Letters
Volume14
Issue number14
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 13 2023

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

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