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Updated: May 18, 2026

The Preparation of Electrohydrodynamic Bridges from Polar Dielectric Liquids
Published on: September 30, 2014
Ultrafast vibrational energy relaxation of the water bridge
Lukasz Piatkowski1, Adam D Wexler, Elmar C Fuchs
1FOM Institute for Atomic and Molecular Physics - AMOLF, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands. piatkowski@amolf.nl
Abstract:
We report the energy relaxation of the OH stretch vibration of HDO molecules contained in an HDO:D(2)O water bridge using femtosecond mid-infrared pump-probe spectroscopy. We found that the vibrational lifetime is shorter (~630 ± 50 fs) than for HDO molecules in bulk HDO:D(2)O (~740 ± 40 fs). In contrast, the thermalization dynamics following the vibrational relaxation are much slower (~1.5 ± 0.4 ps) than in bulk HDO:D(2)O (~250 ± 90 fs). These differences in energy relaxation dynamics strongly indicate that the water bridge and bulk water differ on a molecular scale.
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