Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a popular and powerful analytical tool. Pyrimidine, having two nitrogen atoms with lone pairs of electrons, is capable of charge transfer interactions contributing to the SERS chemical enhancement factor. We recently reported how hydrogen bonding with water results in the blue-shifting of certain normal modes of pyrimidine because of partial charge transfer from pyrimidine to the neighboring hydrogen bonded water network. Here, we are studying how weak, noncovalent interactions affect the SERS spectra of neat pyrimidine and pyrimidine solutions of both water and methanol using silver-island film substrates. We analyze the spectroscopic results by comparing them with the results of electronic structure computations on pyrimidine/solvent clusters. By comparing both the Raman and SERS spectra of bulk pyrimidine and pyrimidine/solvent mixtures, we elucidate the effects of charge transfer between pyrimidine and the solvent and silver substrates.

Surface enhanced Raman (SERS) spectroscopic study of charge transfer induced shifts of pyrimidine mixtures

245th National Meeting (2013)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.