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Quantum Chemistry/Example 31

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Write an example problem related to the conversion between wavelength, frequency, energy and wavenumber of electromagnetic radiation. Show each step in detail and explain the conversion.

Example: Carbon monoxide shows a sharp peak in its IR spectrum at 2143 cm-1

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a) Calculate the frequency and wavelength of the molecule's vibration.

b) Calculate the energy of carbon monoxide at its ground state.

c) Calculate the wavelength of a photon that excites an electron from the ground state up 2 levels.

Solutions

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a) The example provides the wavenumber as an IR spectrum in a plot of wavenumber vs intensity. In this example the wavenumber is 2143 cm-1. This can be converted to frequency using the following equation:

where is the frequency, is the wavenumber and is the speed of light. The speed of light is a constant of 2.9979248x1010 cm/s.

This value then must be converted to the SI units for frequency. One Hz is equal to one s-1, so the conversion is simple by adding the corresponding prefix for

Next in order to determine the wavelength of the vibration we can use the equation:

where is the wavelength.

This equation can be rearranged to solve for wavelength:

This should be converted to the SI units of wavelength which is nm.

b) To find the energy of a molecule at its ground state we can use the equation:

where is the energy, is Planck's constant , is the frequency of the ground state, and is the quantum number of the energy level.

We can use this equation since carbon monoxide's vibrations act as a harmonic oscillator. As this is the ground state the quantum number is equal to 0.

c) We can use the same equation used in b) to first solve the change in energy caused by the photon.In this case, the quantum number is equal to 2.

Now that we have found the change in energy we can calculate the wavelength of the photon using the equation:

Rearrange the equation to solve for λ:

Convert the wavelength to nm for proper SI units

Conclusion

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After working thought part a-c you should be able to see how the conversion between wavelength, frequency, energy and wavenumber of electromagnetic radiation occurs.