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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
Approaching the full set of energy levels of water
Pavlo Maksyutenko1, John S Muenter, Nikolai F Zobov
1Laboratoire de Chimie Physique Moléculaire, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Station 6, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
We report here the measurements of rovibrational levels in the electronic ground state of water molecule at the previously inaccessible energies above 26,000 cm(-1). The use of laser double-resonance overtone excitation extends this limit to 34,200 cm(-1), which corresponds to 83% of the water dissociation energy. We use experimental data to generate a semiempirical potential energy surface that now allows prediction of water levels with sub-cm(-1) accuracy at any energy up to the new limit.
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