Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2000

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Chemistry

Committee Chair

Paul W. Jagodzinski.

Abstract

The orientation of adsorbates on metal colloids was studied by Surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy. We studied the orientation of cyanopyridines, aminomethylpyridines and 4-biphenylcarbonitrile on gold and copper colloids as a function of concentration of the adsorbates. It was found that the orientation of the adsorbate did not change as a function of concentration when adsorbed on gold colloids and was end-on for all concentrations. The orientation of 4-biphenylcarbonitrile was flat-on on gold colloid. The orientation of the adsorbate changed with change in concentration when adsorbed on copper colloids. The orientation was flat-on for higher concentrations and end-on for lower concentrations of 4- and 3-aminomethylpyridines. The orientation was end-on for higher concentrations and flat-on for lower concentrations for 2-aminomethylpyridines when adsorbed on copper colloid. We modeled the surface-adsorbate system using SpartanPro software and calculated the frequencies. The frequencies obtained for these systems were in close agreement with the experimental results.

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