0000000000313609
AUTHOR
Valentin P. Nicu
showing 12 related works from this author
Analysis of Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectra of Peptides
2020
Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) is one of the major spectroscopic tools to study peptides. Nevertheless, a full understanding of what determines the signs and intensities of VCD bands of these compounds in the amide I and amide II spectral regions is still far from complete. In the present work, we study the origin of these VCD signals using the general coupled oscillator (GCO) analysis, a novel approach that has recently been developed. We apply this approach to the ForValNHMe model peptide in both α-helix and β-sheet configurations. We show that the intense VCD signals observed in the amide I and amide II spectral regions essentially have the same underlying mechanism, namely, the th…
Vibrational circular dichroism spectroscopy for probing the expression of chirality in mechanically planar chiral rotaxanes
2020
Mechanically interlocked molecules can exhibit molecular chirality that arises due to the mechanical bond rather than covalent stereogenic units. Developing applications of such systems is made challenging by the absence of techniques for assigning the absolute configuration of products and methods to probe how the mechanical stereogenic unit influences the spatial arrangements of the functional groups in solution. Here we demonstrate for the first time that Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) can be used to not only discriminate between mechanical stereoisomers but also provide detailed information on their (co)conformations. The latter is particularly important as these molecules are now…
Vibrational Circular Dichroism of Thiolate-Protected Au25 Clusters: Accurate Prediction of Spectra and Chirality Transfer within the Mixed Ligand She…
2019
We have prepared Au25(PET)18-2x((R)-FBI-NAS)x(PET = 2-phenylethylthiol, (R)-FBINAS = (R)-5,5',6,6',7,7',8,8'-octafluoro-[1,1'-binaphthalene]-2,2'-dithiol) mixed ligand shell clusters via ligand exchange. Two fractions with different composition of the ligand shell were separated using size-exclusion chromatography and studied by infrared (IR) spectroscopy and vibrational circular dichroism (VCD). Both IR and VCD spectra are dominated by FBINAS vibrations although PET is more abundant on the cluster. Calculated VCD spectra on a model cluster Au25(SH)16(FBINAS)1 depend on the charge state of the cluster, and the anion is in excellent agreement with the experimental spectra of the Au25(PET)18-…
A Tunable, Fullerene‐Based Molecular Amplifier for Vibrational Circular Dichroism
2019
Abstract Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) studies are reported on a chiral compound in which a fullerene C60 moiety is used as an electron acceptor and local VCD amplifier for an alanine‐based peptide chain. Four redox states are investigated in this study, of which three are reduced species that possess low‐lying electronic states as confirmed by UV/Vis spectroelectrochemistry. VCD measurements in combination with (TD)DFT calculations are used to investigate (i) how the low‐lying electronic states of the reduced species modulate the amplification of VCD signals, (ii) how this amplification depends on the distance between oscillator and amplifier, and (iii) how the spatial extent of the…
Analytical chemistry on many-center chiral compounds based on vibrational circular dichroism: Absolute configuration assignments and determination of…
2019
The absolute configuration of a chiral molecule is key to its biological activity. Being able to find out what this configuration is, is thus crucial for a wide range of applications. The difficulties associated with such a determination steeply rise as the number of chiral centers in a given compound becomes larger. Concurrently, it becomes increasingly more challenging to determine the levels and identity of potential stereochemical contaminants in a given sample with one and the same technique, leading in practice to extensive and laborious efforts employing multiple analytical techniques. Here, experimental and theoretical studies based on Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) are presen…
Self-Assembly of Supramolecular Polymers of N-Centered Triarylamine Trisamides in the Light of Circular Dichroism: Reaching Consensus between Electro…
2020
The self-assembly of chiral supramolecular polymers is an intricate process that spans a wide range of length scales. Circular dichroism techniques are ideal to study this process as they provide information on the molecular scale but are at the same time also sensitive probes of the long-range interactions that control the growth and morphology of these polymers. As yet, Electronic Circular Dichroism that uses electronic transitions as a probe has by far been the method of choice while Vibrational Circular Dichroism, which uses vibrational transitions to probe structure, is much less employed. Here, we report experimental and theoretical studies of the self-assembly of helical supramolecul…
Vibrational circular dichroism studies of exceptionally strong chirality inducers in liquid crystals.
2021
7,7′-Disubstituted 2,2′-methylenedioxy-1,1′-binaphthyls are highly efficient chirality inducers in nematic liquid crystals. The absolute configuration of these compounds is, however, hard to determine as they only crystallize as racemic mixtures. In this work a Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) study is reported that provides an unambiguous determination of the absolute configuration of these compounds. An in-depth General Coupled Oscillator (GCO) analysis of the source of the VCD signal reveals that the unusual structure of these binaphthyl compounds inherently leads to strong and robust VCD bands. Combined with linear transit calculations, our VCD studies allow for the determination of…
Raman Spectroscopic Fingerprints of Atomically Precise Ligand Protected Noble Metal Clusters: Au 38 (PET) 24 and Au 38− x Ag x (PET) 24
2021
Distinct Raman spectroscopic signatures of the metal core of atomically precise, ligand-protected noble metal nanoclusters are reported using Au38 (PET)24 and Au38- x Agx (PET)24 (PET = 2-phenylethanethiolate, -SC2 H4 C6 H5 ) as model systems. The fingerprint Raman features (occurring <200 cm-1 ) of these clusters arise due to the vibrations involving metal atoms of their Au23 or Au23- x Agx cores. A distinct core breathing vibrational mode of the Au23 core has been observed at 90 cm-1 . Whereas the breathing mode shifts to higher frequencies with increasing Ag content of the cluster, the vibrational signatures due to the outer metal-ligand staple motifs (between 200 and 500 cm-1 ) do not s…
GUI Implementation of VCDtools, A Program to Analyze Computed Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectra
2020
As computing power increases, vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) calculations on molecules of larger sizes and complexities become possible. At the same time, the spectra resulting from these computations become increasingly more cumbersome to analyze. Here, we describe the GUI implementation into the Amsterdam Density Functional (ADF) software package of VCDtools, a toolbox that provides a user-friendly means to analyze VCD spectra. Key features are the use of the generalized coupled oscillator analysis methods, as well as an easy visualization of the atomic electric and magnetic transition dipole moments which together provide detailed insight in the origin of the VCD intensity. Using s…
Use of Density Functional Based Tight Binding Methods in Vibrational Circular Dichroism.
2018
Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) is a spectroscopic technique used to resolve the absolute configuration of chiral systems. Obtaining a theoretical VCD spectrum requires computing atomic polar and axial tensors on top of the computationally demanding construction of the force constant matrix. In this study we evaluated a VCD model in which all necessary quantities are obtained with density functional based tight binding (DFTB) theory. The analyzed DFTB parametrizations fail at providing accurate vibrational frequencies and electric dipole gradients but yield reasonable normal modes at a fraction of the computational cost of density functional theory (DFT). Thus, by applying DFTB in comp…
Frequency Range Selection Method for Vibrational Spectra
2018
Theoretical calculations of vibrational properties are widely used to explain and predict experimental spectra. However, with standard quantum chemical methods all molecular motions are considered, which is rather time-consuming for large molecules. Because typically only a specific spectral region is of experimental interest, we propose here an efficient method that allows calculation of only a selected frequency interval. After a computationally cheap low-level estimate of the molecular motions, the computational time is proportional to the number of normal modes needed to describe this frequency range. Results for a medium-sized molecule show a reduction in computational time of up to 1 …
Taming conformational heterogeneity in and with vibrational circular dichroism spectroscopy
2019
Chemical science 10, 7680 -7689 (2019). doi:10.1039/C9SC02866H