S Myneni et al 2002 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14 L213 doi:10.1088/0953-8984/14/8/106
S Myneni1,2, Y Luo3,4, L Å Näslund5, M Cavalleri3, L Ojamäe6, H Ogasawara5,9, A Pelmenschikov3, Ph Wernet7, P Väterlein5, C Heske8, Z Hussain8, L G M Pettersson3 and A Nilsson5,7
Show affiliationsWe have studied the electronic structure of liquid water using x-ray absorption spectroscopy at the oxygen K edge. Since the x-ray absorption process takes less than a femtosecond, it allows probing of the molecular orbital structure of frozen, local geometries of water molecules at a timescale that has not previously been accessible. Our results indicate that the electronic structure of liquid water is significantly different from that of the solid and gaseous forms, resulting in a pronounced pre-edge feature below the main absorption edge in the spectrum. Theoretical calculations of these spectra suggest that this feature originates from specific configurations of water, for which the H-bond is broken on the H-donating site of the water molecule. This study provides a fingerprint for identifying broken donating H-bonds in the liquid and shows that an unsaturated H-bonding environment exists for a dominating fraction of the water molecules.
Issue 8 (4 March 2002)
Received 15 January 2002
Published 15 February 2002
S Myneni et al 2002 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14 L213
G Panfilo and P Tavella 2008 Metrologia 45 S108
Nezahat Hunter and Colin R Muirhead 2009 J. Radiol. Prot. 29 5
M S Sodha et al 1965 Br. J. Appl. Phys. 16 721
Valter Moretti and Stefan Steidl 1996 Class. Quantum Grav. 13 2121
M Shimada et al 2001 Phys. Med. Biol. 46 2397
K B Sundaram and G K Bhagavat 1981 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 14 333
M J T Milton et al 2006 Metrologia 43 S291
E Orlandini et al 2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 1535
M Nekipelov et al 2007 J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 34 627