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1 gezelter 4007 \documentclass[journal = jpccck, manuscript = article]{achemso}
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41    
42     \title{Nitrile vibrations as reporters of field-induced phase
43 gezelter 4033 transitions in 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB)}
44 gezelter 4007 \author{James M. Marr}
45     \author{J. Daniel Gezelter}
46     \email{gezelter@nd.edu}
47     \affiliation[University of Notre Dame]{251 Nieuwland Science Hall\\
48     Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry\\
49     University of Notre Dame\\
50     Notre Dame, Indiana 46556}
51    
52     \date{\today}
53    
54     \begin{document}
55    
56     \maketitle
57    
58     \begin{doublespace}
59    
60     \begin{abstract}
61 gezelter 4028 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) is a liquid-crystal-forming compound
62 gezelter 4026 with a terminal nitrile group aligned with the long axis of the
63     molecule. Simulations of condensed-phase 5CB were carried out both
64 gezelter 4027 with and without applied electric fields to provide an understanding
65 gezelter 4028 of the the Stark shift of the terminal nitrile group. A
66     field-induced isotropic-nematic phase transition was observed in the
67     simulations, and the effects of this transition on the distribution
68     of nitrile frequencies were computed. Classical bond displacement
69     correlation functions exhibit a $\sim 40 \mathrm{~cm}^{-1}$ red
70     shift of a portion of the main nitrile peak, and this shift was
71     observed only when the fields were large enough to induce
72     orientational ordering of the bulk phase. Our simulations appear to
73     indicate that phase-induced changes to the local surroundings are a
74     larger contribution to the change in the nitrile spectrum than
75     direct field contributions.
76 gezelter 4007 \end{abstract}
77    
78     \newpage
79    
80     \section{Introduction}
81    
82 gezelter 4028 Nitrile groups can serve as very precise electric field reporters via
83     their distinctive Raman and IR signatures.\cite{Boxer:2009xw} The
84     triple bond between the nitrogen and the carbon atom is very sensitive
85     to local field changes and has been observed to have a direct impact
86     on the peak position within the spectrum. The Stark shift in the
87     spectrum can be quantified and mapped into a field value that is
88     impinging upon the nitrile bond. This has been used extensively in
89     biological systems like proteins and
90     enzymes.\cite{Tucker:2004qq,Webb:2008kn}
91    
92     The response of nitrile groups to electric fields has now been
93     investigated for a number of small molecules,\cite{Andrews:2000qv} as
94     well as in biochemical settings, where nitrile groups can act as
95     minimally invasive probes of structure and
96     dynamics.\cite{Lindquist:2009fk,Fafarman:2010dq} The vibrational Stark
97     effect has also been used to study the effects of electric fields on
98     nitrile-containing self-assembled monolayers at metallic
99     interfaces.\cite{Oklejas:2002uq,Schkolnik:2012ty}
100    
101     Recently 4-cyano-4'-pentylbiphenyl (5CB), a liquid crystalline
102     molecule with a terminal nitrile group, has seen renewed interest as
103     one way to impart order on the surfactant interfaces of
104     nanodroplets,\cite{Moreno-Razo:2012rz} or to drive surface-ordering
105     that can be used to promote particular kinds of
106     self-assembly.\cite{PhysRevLett.111.227801} The nitrile group in 5CB
107     is a particularly interesting case for studying electric field
108     effects, as 5CB exhibits an isotropic to nematic phase transition that
109     can be triggered by the application of an external field near room
110     temperature.\cite{Gray:1973ca,Hatta:1991ee} This presents the
111     possiblity that the field-induced changes in the local environment
112     could have dramatic effects on the vibrations of this particular CN
113     bond. Although the infrared spectroscopy of 5CB has been
114     well-investigated, particularly as a measure of the kinetics of the
115     phase transition,\cite{Leyte:1997zl} the 5CB nitrile group has not yet
116     seen the detailed theoretical treatment that biologically-relevant
117     small molecules have
118     received.\cite{Lindquist:2008bh,Lindquist:2008qf,Oh:2008fk,Choi:2008cr,Waegele:2010ve}
119    
120 gezelter 4007 The fundamental characteristic of liquid crystal mesophases is that
121     they maintain some degree of orientational order while translational
122     order is limited or absent. This orientational order produces a
123     complex direction-dependent response to external perturbations like
124 gezelter 4028 electric fields and mechanical distortions. The anisotropy of the
125 gezelter 4007 macroscopic phases originates in the anisotropy of the constituent
126     molecules, which typically have highly non-spherical structures with a
127 gezelter 4028 significant degree of internal rigidity. In nematic phases, rod-like
128 gezelter 4007 molecules are orientationally ordered with isotropic distributions of
129 gezelter 4028 molecular centers of mass. For example, 5CB has a solid to nematic
130     phase transition at 18C and a nematic to isotropic transition at
131     35C.\cite{Gray:1973ca}
132 gezelter 4007
133 gezelter 4028 In smectic phases, the molecules arrange themselves into layers with
134     their long (symmetry) axis normal ($S_{A}$) or tilted ($S_{C}$) with
135     respect to the layer planes. The behavior of the $S_{A}$ phase can be
136     partially explained with models mainly based on geometric factors and
137     van der Waals interactions. The Gay-Berne potential, in particular,
138     has been widely used in the liquid crystal community to describe this
139     anisotropic phase
140     behavior.~\cite{Gay:1981yu,Berne72,Kushick:1976xy,Luckhurst90,Cleaver:1996rt}
141     However, these simple models are insufficient to describe liquid
142     crystal phases which exhibit more complex polymorphic nature.
143     Molecules which form $S_{A}$ phases can exhibit a wide variety of
144     subphases like monolayers ($S_{A1}$), uniform bilayers ($S_{A2}$),
145     partial bilayers ($S_{\tilde A}$) as well as interdigitated bilayers
146     ($S_{A_{d}}$), and often have a terminal cyano or nitro group. In
147     particular, lyotropic liquid crystals (those exhibiting liquid crystal
148     phase transition as a function of water concentration), often have
149     polar head groups or zwitterionic charge separated groups that result
150     in strong dipolar interactions,\cite{Collings:1997rz} and terminal cyano
151     groups (like the one in 5CB) can induce permanent longitudinal
152     dipoles.\cite{Levelut:1981eu}
153 gezelter 4007
154 gezelter 4028 Macroscopic electric fields applied using electrodes on opposing sides
155     of a sample of 5CB have demonstrated the phase change of the molecule
156     as a function of electric field.\cite{Lim:2006xq} These previous
157     studies have shown the nitrile group serves as an excellent indicator
158     of the molecular orientation within the applied field. Lee {\it et
159     al.}~showed a 180 degree change in field direction could be probed
160     with the nitrile peak intensity as it changed along with molecular
161     alignment in the field.\cite{Lee:2006qd,Leyte:1997zl}
162 gezelter 4007
163 gezelter 4028 While these macroscopic fields work well at indicating the bulk
164 gezelter 4007 response, the atomic scale response has not been studied. With the
165     advent of nano-electrodes and coupling them with atomic force
166     microscopy, control of electric fields applied across nanometer
167 gezelter 4028 distances is now possible.\cite{citation1} While macroscopic fields
168     are insufficient to cause a Stark effect without dielectric breakdown
169     of the material, small fields across nanometer-sized gaps may be of
170     sufficient strength. For a gap of 5 nm between a lower electrode
171     having a nanoelectrode placed near it via an atomic force microscope,
172     a potential of 1 V applied across the electrodes is equivalent to a
173     field of 2x10\textsuperscript{8} $\frac{V}{M}$. This field is
174     certainly strong enough to cause the isotropic-nematic phase change
175     and as well as Stark tuning of the nitrile bond. This should be
176     readily visible experimentally through Raman or IR spectroscopy.
177 gezelter 4007
178 gezelter 4028 In the sections that follow, we outline a series of coarse-grained
179     classical molecular dynamics simulations of 5CB that were done in the
180     presence of static electric fields. These simulations were then
181     coupled with both {\it ab intio} calculations of CN-deformations and
182     classical bond-length correlation functions to predict spectral
183     shifts. These predictions made should be easily varifiable with
184     scanning electrochemical microscopy experiments.
185 gezelter 4007
186     \section{Computational Details}
187 gezelter 4027 The force field used for 5CB was taken from Guo {\it et
188     al.}\cite{Zhang:2011hh} However, for most of the simulations, each
189     of the phenyl rings was treated as a rigid body to allow for larger
190     time steps and very long simulation times. The geometries of the
191     rigid bodies were taken from equilibrium bond distances and angles.
192     Although the phenyl rings were held rigid, bonds, bends, torsions and
193 gezelter 4028 inversion centers that involved atoms in these substructures (but with
194     connectivity to the rest of the molecule) were still included in the
195     potential and force calculations.
196 gezelter 4007
197 gezelter 4028 Periodic simulations cells containing 270 molecules in random
198     orientations were constructed and were locked at experimental
199     densities. Electrostatic interactions were computed using damped
200     shifted force (DSF) electrostatics.\cite{Fennell:2006zl} The molecules
201     were equilibrated for 1~ns at a temperature of 300K. Simulations with
202     applied fields were carried out in the microcanonical (NVE) ensemble
203     with an energy corresponding to the average energy from the canonical
204     (NVT) equilibration runs. Typical applied-field runs were more than
205     60ns in length.
206 gezelter 4007
207 gezelter 4027 Static electric fields with magnitudes similar to what would be
208     available in an experimental setup were applied to the different
209     simulations. With an assumed electrode seperation of 5 nm and an
210     electrostatic potential that is limited by the voltage required to
211     split water (1.23V), the maximum realistic field that could be applied
212 gezelter 4028 is $\sim 0.024$ V/\AA. Three field environments were investigated:
213     (1) no field applied, (2) partial field = 0.01 V/\AA\ , and (3) full
214     field = 0.024 V/\AA\ .
215 gezelter 4007
216 gezelter 4027 After the systems had come to equilibrium under the applied fields,
217 gezelter 4028 additional simulations were carried out with a flexible (Morse)
218     nitrile bond,
219     \begin{displaymath}
220     V(r_\ce{CN}) = D_e \left(1 - e^{-\beta (r_\ce{CN}-r_e)}\right)^2
221     \end{displaymath}
222     where $r_e= 1.157437$ \AA , $D_e = 212.95 \mathrm{~kca~l} /
223 gezelter 4029 \mathrm{mol}^{-1}$ and $\beta = 2.67566 $\AA~$^{-1}$. These
224     parameters correspond to a vibrational frequency of $2375
225     \mathrm{~cm}^{-1}$, a bit higher than the experimental frequency. The
226     flexible nitrile moiety required simulation time steps of 1~fs, so the
227     additional flexibility was introducuced only after the rigid systems
228     had come to equilibrium under the applied fields. Whenever time
229     correlation functions were computed from the flexible simulations,
230 gezelter 4028 statistically-independent configurations were sampled from the last ns
231     of the induced-field runs. These configurations were then
232     equilibrated with the flexible nitrile moiety for 100 ps, and time
233     correlation functions were computed using data sampled from an
234     additional 200 ps of run time carried out in the microcanonical
235     ensemble.
236 gezelter 4027
237     \section{Field-induced Nematic Ordering}
238    
239     In order to characterize the orientational ordering of the system, the
240     primary quantity of interest is the nematic (orientational) order
241     parameter. This was determined using the tensor
242     \begin{equation}
243     Q_{\alpha \beta} = \frac{1}{2N} \sum_{i=1}^{N} \left(3 \hat{e}_{i
244     \alpha} \hat{e}_{i \beta} - \delta_{\alpha \beta} \right)
245     \end{equation}
246     where $\alpha, \beta = x, y, z$, and $\hat{e}_i$ is the molecular
247     end-to-end unit vector for molecule $i$. The nematic order parameter
248     $S$ is the largest eigenvalue of $Q_{\alpha \beta}$, and the
249     corresponding eigenvector defines the director axis for the phase.
250     $S$ takes on values close to 1 in highly ordered (smectic A) phases,
251 gezelter 4028 but falls to zero for isotropic fluids. Note that the nitrogen and
252     the terminal chain atom were used to define the vectors for each
253     molecule, so the typical order parameters are lower than if one
254     defined a vector using only the rigid core of the molecule. In
255     nematic phases, typical values for $S$ are close to 0.5.
256 gezelter 4027
257 gezelter 4029 The field-induced phase transition can be clearly seen over the course
258     of a 60 ns equilibration runs in figure \ref{fig:orderParameter}. All
259 gezelter 4027 three of the systems started in a random (isotropic) packing, with
260     order parameters near 0.2. Over the course 10 ns, the full field
261     causes an alignment of the molecules (due primarily to the interaction
262     of the nitrile group dipole with the electric field). Once this
263 gezelter 4029 system started exhibiting nematic ordering, the orientational order
264     parameter became stable for the remaining 50 ns of simulation time.
265     It is possible that the partial-field simulation is meta-stable and
266     given enough time, it would eventually find a nematic-ordered phase,
267     but the partial-field simulation was stable as an isotropic phase for
268 gezelter 4032 the full duration of a 60 ns simulation. Ellipsoidal renderings of the
269     final configurations of the runs shows that the full-field (0.024
270     V/\AA\ ) experienced a isotropic-nematic phase transition and has
271     ordered with a director axis that is parallel to the direction of the
272     applied field.
273    
274     \begin{figure}[H]
275     \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figure1}
276     \caption{Evolution of the orientational order parameters for the
277 gezelter 4029 no-field, partial field, and full field simulations over the
278     course of 60 ns. Each simulation was started from a
279 gezelter 4032 statistically-independent isotropic configuration. On the right
280     are ellipsoids representing the final configurations at three
281     different field strengths: zero field (bottom), partial field
282     (middle), and full field (top)}
283 gezelter 4027 \label{fig:orderParameter}
284     \end{figure}
285    
286    
287 gezelter 4029 \section{Sampling the CN bond frequency}
288 gezelter 4027
289 gezelter 4035 The vibrational frequency of the nitrile bond in 5CB depends on
290     features of the local solvent environment of the individual molecules
291     as well as the bond's orientation relative to the applied field. The
292     primary quantity of interest for interpreting the condensed phase
293     spectrum of this vibration is the distribution of frequencies
294     exhibited by the 5CB nitrile bond under the different electric fields.
295     Three distinct methods for mapping classical simulations onto
296     vibrational spectra were brought to bear on these simulations:
297 gezelter 4029 \begin{enumerate}
298     \item Isolated 5CB molecules and their immediate surroundings were
299 gezelter 4035 extracted from the simulations. These nitrile bonds were stretched
300 gezelter 4029 and single-point {\em ab initio} calculations were used to obtain
301     Morse-oscillator fits for the local vibrational motion along that
302     bond.
303     \item The potential - frequency maps developed by Cho {\it et
304     al.}~\cite{Oh:2008fk} for nitrile moieties in water were
305     investigated. This method involves mapping the electrostatic
306     potential around the bond to the vibrational frequency, and is
307     similar in approach to field-frequency maps that were pioneered by
308 gezelter 4032 Skinner {\it et al.}\cite{XXXX}
309 gezelter 4029 \item Classical bond-length autocorrelation functions were Fourier
310     transformed to directly obtain the vibrational spectrum from
311     molecular dynamics simulations.
312     \end{enumerate}
313    
314     \subsection{CN frequencies from isolated clusters}
315 gezelter 4033 The size of the periodic condensed phase system prevented direct
316     computation of the complete library of nitrile bond frequencies using
317     {\it ab initio} methods. In order to sample the nitrile frequencies
318     present in the condensed-phase, individual molecules were selected
319     randomly to serve as the center of a local (gas phase) cluster. To
320     include steric, electrostatic, and other effects from molecules
321     located near the targeted nitrile group, portions of other molecules
322     nearest to the nitrile group were included in the quantum mechanical
323     calculations. The surrounding solvent molecules were divided into
324     ``body'' (the two phenyl rings and the nitrile bond) and ``tail'' (the
325     alkyl chain). Any molecule which had a body atom within 6~\AA of the
326     midpoint of the target nitrile bond had its own molecular body (the
327 gezelter 4035 4-cyano-biphenyl moiety) included in the configuration. For the alkyl
328     tail, the entire tail was included if any tail atom was within 4~\AA
329     of the target nitrile bond. If tail atoms (but no body atoms) were
330     included within these distances, only the tail was included as a
331     capped propane molecule.
332 gezelter 4029
333 gezelter 4033 \begin{figure}[H]
334     \includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{Figure2}
335     \caption{Cluster calculations were performed on randomly sampled 5CB
336 gezelter 4035 molecules (shown in red) from each of the simulations. Surrounding
337     molecular bodies were included if any body atoms were within 6
338     \AA\ of the target nitrile bond, and tails were included if they
339     were within 4 \AA. Included portions of these molecules are shown
340     in green. The CN bond on the target molecule was stretched and
341     compressed, and the resulting single point energies were fit to
342     Morse oscillators to obtain frequency distributions.}
343 gezelter 4033 \label{fig:cluster}
344     \end{figure}
345 gezelter 4032
346 gezelter 4035 Inferred hydrogen atom locations were added to the cluster geometries,
347     and the nitrile bond was stretched from 0.87 to 1.52~\AA\ at
348     increments of 0.05~\AA. This generated 13 configurations per gas phase
349     cluster. Single-point energies were computed using the B3LYP
350     functional~\cite{Becke:1993kq,Lee:1988qf} and the 6-311++G(d,p) basis
351     set. For the cluster configurations that had been generated from
352     molecular dynamics running under applied fields, the density
353     functional calculations had a field of $5 \times 10^{-4}$ atomic units
354     ($E_h / (e a_0)$) applied in the $+z$ direction in order to match the
355     molecular dynamics simulations.
356 gezelter 4007
357 gezelter 4035 The energies for the stretched / compressed nitrile bond in each of
358     the clusters were used to fit Morse oscillators, and the frequencies
359     were obtained from the $0 \rightarrow 1$ transition for the energy
360     levels for this potential.\cite{Morse:1929xy} To obtain a spectrum,
361     each of the frequencies was convoluted with a Lorentzian lineshape
362     with a width of 1.5 $\mathrm{cm}^{-1}$. Available computing resources
363     limited the sampling to 67 clusters for the zero-field spectrum, and
364     59 for the full field. Comparisons of the quantum mechanical spectrum
365     to the classical are shown in figure \ref{fig:spectrum}.
366 gezelter 4033
367 gezelter 4029 \subsection{CN frequencies from potential-frequency maps}
368 gezelter 4035 One approach which has been used to successfully analyze the spectrum
369     of nitrile and thiocyanate probes in aqueous environments was
370     developed by Choi {\it et al.}~\cite{Choi:2008cr,Oh:2008fk} This
371     method involves finding a multi-parameter fit that maps between the
372     local electrostatic potential at selected sites surrounding the
373     nitrile bond and the vibrational frequency of that bond obtained from
374     more expensive {\it ab initio} methods. This approach is similar in
375     character to the field-frequency maps developed by Skinner {\it et
376     al.} for OH stretches in liquid water.\cite{XXXX}
377    
378     To use the potential-frequency maps, the local electrostatic
379     potential, $\phi$, is computed at 20 sites ($a = 1 \rightarrow 20$)
380     that surround the nitrile bond,
381 gezelter 4029 \begin{equation}
382 gezelter 4035 \phi_{a} = \frac{1}{4\pi \epsilon_{0}} \sum_{j}
383     \frac{q_j}{\left|r_{aj}\right|}.
384 gezelter 4029 \end{equation}
385 gezelter 4035 Here $q_j$ is the partial site on atom $j$, and $r_{aj}$ is the
386     distance between site $a$ and atom $j$. The original map was
387     parameterized in liquid water and comprises a set of parameters,
388     $l_a$, that predict the shift in nitrile peak frequency,
389 gezelter 4029 \begin{equation}
390 gezelter 4035 \delta\tilde{\nu} =\sum^{20}_{a=1} l_{a}\phi_{a}
391 gezelter 4029 \end{equation}
392 gezelter 4035
393     The simulations of 5CB were carried in the presence of external
394     electric fields, out without water present, so it is not clear if they
395     can be applied to this situation without extensive
396     reparameterization. We do, however, suggest a small modification that
397     would help
398    
399     , so the equations need to be corrected
400     for the frequency shift caused by the electric field. We attempted to
401     make small modifications the original $\phi^{water}_{a}$ to
402     $\phi^{5CB}_{a}$ we get,
403 gezelter 4029 \begin{equation}
404     \phi^{5CB}_{a} = \frac{1}{4\pi \epsilon_{0}} \left( \vec{E}\bullet
405     \left(\vec{r}_{a}-\vec{r}_{CN}\right) \right) + \phi^{5CB}_{0}
406     \end{equation}
407     where $\vec{E}$ is the electric field at each atom, $\left( \vec{r}_{a} -
408     \vec{r}_{CN} \right)$ is the vector between the nitrile bond and the
409     cooridinates described by Cho around the bond and $\phi^{5CB}_{0}$ is
410     the correction factor for the system of parameters. After these
411     changes, the correction factor was found for multiple values of an
412     external field being applied. However, the factor was no linear and
413     was overly large due to the fitting parameters being so small.
414    
415    
416     \subsection{CN frequencies from bond length autocorrelation functions}
417    
418 gezelter 4007 Classical nitrile bond frequencies were found by replacing the rigid
419 gezelter 4035 cyanide bond with a flexible Morse oscillator bond ($r_0= 1.157437$
420     \AA , $D_0 = 212.95$ and $\beta = 2.67566$). Once replaced, the
421     systems were allowed to re-equilibrate in the canonical (NVT) ensemble
422     for 100 ps. After re-equilibration, the system was run in the
423     microcanonical (NVE) ensemble for 20 ps. Configurations sampled every
424     fs were then used to compute bond-length autocorrelation functions to
425     find the decay structure of the bond in time using the average bond
426     displacement in time,
427 gezelter 4007 \begin{equation}
428     C(t) = \langle \left(r(t) - r_0 \right) \cdot \left(r(0) - r_0 \right) \rangle
429     \end{equation}
430     %
431     where $r_0$ is the equilibrium bond distance and $r(t)$ is the
432     instantaneous bond displacement at time $t$. Once calculated,
433     smoothing was applied by adding an exponential decay on top of the
434 jmarr 4023 decay with a $\tau$ of 6000. Further smoothing
435 gezelter 4007 was applied by padding 20,000 zeros on each side of the symmetric
436     data. This was done five times by allowing the systems to run 1 ns
437     with a rigid bond followed by an equilibrium run with the bond
438 jmarr 4023 switched back to a Morse oscillator and a short production run of 20 ps.
439 gezelter 4007
440    
441 jmarr 4017 This change in phase was followed by two courses of further
442 jmarr 4019 analysis. First was the replacement of the static nitrile bond with a
443 jmarr 4017 morse oscillator bond. This was then simulated for a period of time
444 jmarr 4022 and a classical spetrum was calculated. Second, ab intio calcualtions
445 jmarr 4023 were performed to investigate if the phase change caused any change
446     spectrum through quantum effects.
447 jmarr 4017
448 jmarr 4019 The classical nitrile spectrum can be seen in Figure 2. Most noticably
449     is the position of the two peaks. Obviously the experimental peak
450     position is near 2226 cm\textsuperscript{-1}. However, in this case
451     the peak position is shifted to the blue at a position of 2375
452     cm\textsuperscript{-1}. This shift is due solely to the choice of
453 jmarr 4022 oscillator strength in the Morse oscillator parameters. While this
454 jmarr 4019 shift makes the two spectra differ, it does not affect the ability to
455 jmarr 4022 qualitatively compare peak changes to possible experimental changes.
456 jmarr 4019 With this important fact out of the way, differences between the two
457     states are subtle but are very much present. The first and
458     most notable is the apperance for a strong band near 2300
459 jmarr 4020 cm\textsuperscript{-1}.
460 jmarr 4013 \begin{figure}
461     \includegraphics[width=3.25in]{2Spectra}
462 jmarr 4017 \caption{The classically calculated nitrile bond spetrum for no
463     external field application (black) and full external field
464     application (red)}
465 jmarr 4013 \label{fig:twoSpectra}
466     \end{figure}
467 jmarr 4020
468    
469 jmarr 4023 Due to this, Gaussian calculations were performed in lieu of this
470     method. A set of snapshots for the zero and full field simualtions,
471     they were first investigated for any dependence on the local, with
472     external field included, electric field. This was to see if a linear
473     or non-linear relationship between the two could be utilized for
474     generating spectra. This was done in part because of previous studies
475     showing the frequency dependence of nitrile bonds to the electric
476     fields generated locally between solvating water. It was seen that
477     little to no dependence could be directly shown. This data is not
478     shown.
479    
480 jmarr 4020 Since no explicit dependence was observed between the calculated
481     frequency and the electric field, it was not a viable route for the
482     calculation of a nitrile spectrum. Instead, the frequencies were taken
483 jmarr 4024 and convolved together with a lorentzian line shape applied around the
484     frequency value. These spectra are seen below in Figure
485 jmarr 4020 4. While the spectrum without a field is lower in intensity and is
486 jmarr 4024 almost bimodel in distrobution, the external field spectrum is much
487 jmarr 4023 more unimodel. This tighter clustering has the affect of increasing the
488 jmarr 4020 intensity around 2226 cm\textsuperscript{-1} where the peak is
489 jmarr 4023 centered. The external field also has fewer frequencies of higher
490     energy in the spectrum. Unlike the the zero field, where some frequencies
491     reach as high as 2280 cm\textsuperscript{-1}.
492 jmarr 4013 \begin{figure}
493 jmarr 4018 \includegraphics[width=3.25in]{Convolved}
494 jmarr 4020 \caption{Lorentzian convolved Gaussian frequencies of the zero field
495     system (black) and the full field system (red)}
496 jmarr 4018 \label{fig:Con}
497     \end{figure}
498 gezelter 4007 \section{Discussion}
499 jmarr 4024 Interestingly, the field that is needed to switch the phase of 5CB
500     macroscopically is larger than 1 V. However, in this case, only a
501     voltage of 1.2 V was need to induce a phase change. This is impart due
502     to the short distance of 5 nm the field is being applied across. At such a small
503     distance, the field is much larger than the macroscopic and thus
504     easily induces a field dependent phase change. However, this field
505     will not cause a breakdown of the 5CB since electrochemistry studies
506     have shown that it can be used in the presence of fields as high as
507     500 V macroscopically. This large of a field near the surface of the
508     elctrode would cause breakdown of 5CB if it could happen.
509    
510 jmarr 4020 The absence of any electric field dependency of the freuquency with
511 jmarr 4025 the Gaussian simulations is interesting. A large base of research has been
512 jmarr 4024 built upon the known tuning of the nitrile bond as the local field
513     changes. This difference may be due to the absence of water or a
514     molecule that induces a large internal field. Liquid water is known to have a very high internal field which
515 jmarr 4020 is much larger than the internal fields of neat 5CB. Even though the
516 jmarr 4024 application of Gaussian simulations followed by mapping it to
517 jmarr 4020 some classical parameter is easy and straight forward, this system
518     illistrates how that 'go to' method can break down.
519 gezelter 4007
520 jmarr 4020 While this makes the application of nitrile Stark effects in
521 jmarr 4024 simulations without water harder, these data show
522 jmarr 4021 that it is not a deal breaker. The classically calculated nitrile
523     spectrum shows changes in the spectra that will be easily seen through
524     experimental routes. It indicates a shifted peak lower in energy
525 jmarr 4024 should arise. This peak is a few wavenumbers from the leading edge of
526     the larger peak and almost 75 wavenumbers from the center. This
527     seperation between the two peaks means experimental results will show
528     an easily resolved peak.
529 jmarr 4021
530 jmarr 4024 The Gaussian derived spectra do indicate an applied field
531 jmarr 4023 and subsiquent phase change does cause a narrowing of freuency
532 jmarr 4025 distrobution. With narrowing, it would indicate an increased
533     homogeneous distrobution of the local field near the nitrile.
534 gezelter 4007 \section{Conclusions}
535 jmarr 4024 Field dependent changes
536 gezelter 4007 \newpage
537    
538     \bibliography{5CB}
539    
540     \end{doublespace}
541     \end{document}