Infrared Spectra of Hydrogen-Bonded Molecular Complexes Under Spatial Confinement

Infrared (IR) spectroscopy is commonly used in chemical laboratories to study the geometrical structure of molecules and molecular complexes. The analysis of experimental IR spectra can nowadays be reliably supported by the results of quantum-chemical computations as vibrational frequencies and corresponding vibrational transition intensities are routinely calculated using harmonic approximation by virtually all quantum chemistry packages. In the present study we combine the methodology of computing vibrational spectra using high-level electron correlation treatments with an analytical potential-based approach to take into account spatial confinement effects. Using this approach, we perform a pioneering analysis of the impact of the spatial confinement caused by a cylindrical harmonic oscillator potential on the harmonic vibrational transition intensities and frequencies of two hydrogen-bonded complexes: HCN…HCN and HCN…HNC. The emphasis is put on the largest-intensity bands, which correspond to the stretching vibrations. The obtained results demonstrate that embedding the molecular complexes in an external confining potential causes significant changes of transition intensities and vibrational frequencies.