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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1995  > November  >
General Interest
Stark Effects on Rigid-Rotor Wavefunctions: A Quantum Description of Dipolar Rotors Trapped in Electric Fields
Giles Henderson and Brad Logsdon
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL 61920
Cover
November 1995
Vol. 72 No. 11
p. 1021
Abstract
Chemists have had few opportunities to study the effects of molecular orientations on reactions. At ordinary temperatures, it is impractical to orient gas phase molecules with electric fields because their rotational kinetic energies are large compared to the interaction energy of molecular dipoles with accessible laboratory fields. This study uses a variational matrix method and computer graphics to illustrate how orientational probability of molecules cooled by supersonic expansions are dramatically influenced by electric fields. These calculations reveal how free rotor wavefunctions evolve into harmonic oscillator type functions as dipolar molecules become trapped by the laboratory field as Stark pendulum oscillators. A supplement to this article that includes computer animated descriptions of the molecular motions described here are available at JCE Internet.
More Information
*  Citation
 Henderson, Giles; Logsdon, Brad. J. Chem. Educ. 1995 72 1021.
*  Keywords
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 10/1/1999
5/22/2006
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