High-accuracy structure of cyclobutane by femtosecond rotational Raman four-wave mixing

The femtosecond degenerate four-wave mixing (fs-DFWM) technique is applied for the measurement of accurate rotational constants of cyclobutane (C4H8). The vibrational levels of C4H8 exhibit tunneling splitting due to the ring-puckering interconversion between the symmetry-equivalent D2d minima via a planar D4h barrier. For the v = 0 ground state, the fs-DFWM method yields a rotational constant B + 0 = 10663.452(18) MHz. The ring-puckering tunneling leads to slightly different rotational constants for the 0+ and 0- levels, B + 0 - B -0 = 33 +/- 2 kHz. This difference increases by a factor of approximately 90 in the v = 1+/1- ring-puckering states to B +1 - B -1 = -3059 +/- 4 kHz. Combining the experimental rotational constants with the structure parameters and rotational constants calculated by high-level ab initio calculations allows us to determine accurate equilibrium and vibrationally averaged structure parameters for cyclobutane, for example, re(C-C) = 1.5474 A, re(C-Haxial) = 1.0830 A, re(C-Hequatorial) = 1.0810 A, and ring puckering angle theta e = 29.8 degrees .