Infrared intensities and charge mobility in hydrogen bonded complexes.

The analytical model for the study of charge mobility in the molecules presented by Galimberti et al. [J. Chem. Phys. 138, 164115 (2013)] is applied to hydrogen bonded planar dimers. Atomic charges and charge fluxes are obtained from density functional theory computed atomic polar tensors and related first derivatives, thus providing an interpretation of the IR intensity enhancement of the X-H stretching band observed upon aggregation. Our results show that both principal and non-principal charge fluxes have an important role for the rationalization of the spectral behavior; moreover, they demonstrate that the modulation of the charge distribution during vibrational motions of the -XH⋯Y- fragment is not localized exclusively on the atoms directly involved in hydrogen bonding. With these premises we made some correlations between IR intensities, interaction energies, and charge fluxes. The model was tested on small dimers and subsequently to the bigger one cytosine-guanine. Thus, the model can be applied to complex systems.