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Updated: Jul 30, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Structure and dynamics of water confined in dimethyl sulfoxide
1Institut für Chemie, Abteilung Physikalische Chemie, Universität Rostock, 18051 Rostock, Germany.
Abstract:
We study the structure and dynamics of hydrogen-bonded complexes of H2O/D2O and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) by infrared spectroscopy, NMR spectroscopy and ab initio calculations. We find that single water molecules occur in two configurations. For one half of the water monomers both OH/OD groups form strong hydrogen bonds to DMSO molecules, whereas for the other half only one of the two OH/OD groups is hydrogen-bonded to a solvent molecule. The H-bond strength between water and DMSO is in the order of that in bulk water. NMR deuteron relaxation rates and calculated deuteron quadrupole coupling constants yield rotational correlation times of water. The molecular reorientation of water monomers in DMSO is two-and-a-half times slower than in bulk water. This result can be explained by local structure behavior.
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