Electronic transitions in liquid amides studied by using attenuated total reflection far-ultraviolet spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations.

Attenuated total reflection far-ultraviolet (ATR-FUV) spectra in the 140-260 nm region were measured for several types of liquid amides (formamide, FA; N-methylformamide, NMF; N-methylacetamide, NMA; N,N-dimethylformamide, NdMF; and N,N-dimethylacetamide, NdMA) to investigate their electronic transitions in the FUV region. The spectra were compared with the corresponding gas-phase spectra to examine the shift in the major absorption band in the 180-200 nm region going from the gas phase to the liquid phase, and it was found that the peak shift was dependent on the particular amide. FA and NMF, which exhibit intermolecular C=O[ellipsis...H-N hydrogen bonding, show a large shift of ~0.60 eV to lower energy; however, NMA, which also exhibits hydrogen bonding, shows only a small shift. In NdMF and NdMA, C=O groups seem to be coupled, which results in a small peak shift. Two types of quantum chemical calculations, time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) and symmetry-adapted-cluster configuration interaction (SAC-CI) method, were performed to elucidate the origin of the shifts and the band assignments. The shift estimated by the monomer and dimer models with TD-DFT reproduced well the observed shift from the gas phase to the liquid phase. This suggests that the intermolecular hydrogen-bonding interaction significantly affects the magnitude of the shift. The many-body effects were also considered using the larger cluster models (trimer to pentamer). The energy shift calculated using SAC-CI with the monomer and the state-specific polarizable continuum model was also accurate, indicating that the nonlinear polarization effect appears to be important. As for the band assignments, it was found that though the major band can be mainly attributed to the π-π* transition, several types of Rydberg transitions also exist in its vicinity and mixing of orbitals with the same symmetry occurs. The number and type of Rydberg transitions in the spectra depend upon the type of amide molecules. The valence-Rydberg coupling of the π-π* transition is more significant than n-π* transition, which also holds in the pure liquid phase.