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Updated: Jul 5, 2026

Probing the Structure and Dynamics of Interfacial Water with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy
Published on: May 27, 2018
A sodium atom in a large water cluster: electron delocalization and infrared spectra
Lukasz Cwiklik1, Udo Buck, Waldemar Kulig
1Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic and Center for Biomolecules and Complex Molecular Systems, Prague 6, Czech Republic.
Abstract:
Ab initio molecular dynamics simulations modeling low-energy collisions of a sodium atom with a cluster with more than 30 water molecules are presented. We follow the dynamics of the atom-cluster interaction and the delocalization of the valence electron of sodium together with the changes in the electron binding energy. This electron tends to be shared by the nascent sodium cation and the water cluster. IR spectra of the sodium-water cluster are both computationally and experimentally obtained, with a good agreement between the two approaches.
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