Hannover 2013 – scientific programme
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MO: Fachverband Molekülphysik
MO 19: Poster 2: Biomolecules, Cold Molecules, Experimental Techniques, Various Topics
MO 19.3: Poster
Wednesday, March 20, 2013, 16:00–18:30, Empore Lichthof
On the conformers of Glycine — •Thomas Kierspel1, Yuan-Pin Chang1, and Jochen Küpper1,2,3 — 1Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, DESY, Hamburg — 2Department of Physics, University of Hamburg — 3Center for Ultrafast Imaging, University of Hamburg
Glycine (C2H5NO2) is the smallest amino acid and a building block of almost all proteins. It is of considerably importance for biology and chemistry and it’s observation in space [1] has had profound impact onto the new field of astrobiology and -biochemistry.
Theoretical studies predict that in the temperature range of 358–438 K at least four conformers of Glycine have relevant, i.e., detectable, populations [2]. Even though there is strong theoretical evidence for the existence of conformer IV it is still waiting to be detected in an experiment.
We present predictions for an experimental approach which can be used to spatially separate the different conformers of Glycine using a Stark deflector [3]. Glycine is heated up to different temperatures and seeded in a supersonic expansion of a cold molecular beam. Since different conformers have different rotational constants and permanent dipole moments they experience a conformer dependent deflection in the deflector [3]. By varying the voltage applied to the deflector it is possible to analyze the the existence of the various known and predicted conformer.
[1] Kwan et. al, Astrophys. J. 593, 848 (2003)
[2] Miller et al, J. Chem. Phys. 122, 244323 (2005)
[3] Filsinger et al, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 48, 6900 (2009)