15min:
ROVIBRATIONAL SPECTROSCOPY OF CHIRAL MOLECULES.

SIEGHARD ALBERT, KAREN KEPPLER ALBERT AND MARTIN QUACK, PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY, ETH ZÜRICH, CH-8093 ZÜRICH, SWITZERLAND.

It is of fundamental interest to demonstrate molecular parity violation\footnoteM.~Quack, Angew.~Chem.~Intl.~Ed.~Engl. , 114, 4812 (2002), M. Quack and J. Stohner, J.~Chem.~Phys. , 119, 11228 (2003). A first step towards promising spectroscopic experiments on parity violation in chiral molecules is the analysis of a high resolution infrared or optical spectrum. Because of the inherent complexity of such spectra so far very few such analyses have been carried out, to our knowledge all in the Zürich group.

We will present spectra recorded with our Zürich Bruker 2001 prototype Fourier transform infrared spectrometer\footnote S.~Albert, K.K. Albert, and M.~Quack, Trends in Optics and Photonics , 84 177 (2003), S.~Albert, H.~Hollenstein, M.~Quack and M.~Willeke, Mol.~Phys. , 102, 1671 (2004). of CDBrClF and the isotopic chiral molecules CH35Cl37ClF and D1-Oxirane. We were able to analyse the spectra in the CO2-Laser regions, the nu6, 2 nu8, nu5, nu4, nu3, ( nu6 + nu8) bands of CDBrClF, the nu4, ( nu5 + nu9) bands of CH35Cl37ClF and the nu8 band of D1-Oxirane. Ultra-high resolution laser spectroscopy can be applied in this region.

A recent connection of a cooling cell to our Bruker FTIR spectrometer made it possible to analyse the first overtones of the CF stretching modes of CDBrClF and CH35Cl37ClF. These overtone spectra are of interest because quasiresonant two photon CO2 laser spectroscopy can be used in this spectral region. Based on our assignments we also propose that rotational spectroscopy carried out with backward wave oscillators is a promising way to measure molecular parity violation for heavier molecules. First theoretical predictions for such rotational spectral shifts exist.