15min:

SUSUMU KUMA, Division of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan; MIKHAIL N. SLIPCHENKO, KIRILL E. KUYANOV, Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90080, USA; TAKAMASA MOMOSE, Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada; AND ANDREY F. VILESOV, Department of Chemistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90080, USA.

The infrared spectra of N₂-H₂O, O₂-H₂O and Ar-H₂O complexes in superfluid He droplets were measured in the range of the stretching vibrational bands of water molecules. The infrared intensity of the anti-symmetric stretching bands in these complexes were found to be very similar to that in single H₂O molecules. The spectra show that H₂O in O₂-H₂O and Ar-H₂O rotates nearly freely, whereas no indication of H₂O internal rotation was observed in N₂-H₂O spectra. The conformation of the N₂-H₂O complexes was estimated from the rotational constants.