Heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy was applied to the water surface for measuring the imaginary part of second-order nonlinear susceptibility (Im χ((2))) spectrum in the bend frequency region for the first time. The observed Im χ((2)) spectrum shows an overall positive band around 1650 cm(-1), contradicting former theoretical predictions. We further found that the Im χ((2)) spectrum of NaI aqueous solution exhibits an even larger positive band, which is apparently contrary to the flip-flop orientation of surface water. These unexpected observations are elucidated by calculating quadrupole contributions beyond the conventional dipole approximation. It is indicated that the Im χ((2)) spectrum in the bend region has a large quadrupole contribution from the bulk water.

Interfacial water in the vicinity of lipids plays an important role in many biological processes, such as drug delivery, ion transportation, and lipid fusion. Hence, molecular‐level elucidation of the properties of water at lipid interfaces is of the utmost importance. We report the two‐dimensional heterodyne‐detected vibrational sum frequency generation (2D HD‐VSFG) study of the OH stretch of HOD at charged lipid interfaces, which shows that the hydrogen bond dynamics of interfacial water differ drastically, depending on the lipids. The data indicate that the spectral diffusion of the OH stretch at a positively charged lipid interface is dominated by the ultrafast (<∼100 fs) component, followed by the minor sub‐picosecond slow dynamics, while the dynamics at a negatively charged lipid interface exhibit sub‐picosecond dynamics almost exclusively, implying that fast hydrogen bond fluctuation is prohibited. These results reveal that the ultrafast hydrogen bond dynamics at the positively charged lipid–water interface are attributable to the bulk‐like property of interfacial water, whereas the slow dynamics at the negatively charged lipid interface are due to bound water, which is hydrogen‐bonded to the hydrophilic head group.

Femtosecond vibrational dynamics at the air/water interface is investigated by time-resolved heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation (TR-HD-VSFG) spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. The low- and high-frequency sides of the hydrogen-bonded (HB) OH stretch band at the interface are selectively excited with special attention to the bandwidth and energy of the pump pulses. Narrow bleach is observed immediately after excitation of the high-frequency side of the HB OH band at ∼3500 cm(-1), compared to the broad bleach observed with excitation of the low-frequency side at ∼3300 cm(-1). However, the time-resolved spectra observed with the two different excitations become very similar at 0.5 ps and almost indistinguishable by 1.0 ps. This reveals that efficient spectral diffusion occurs regardless of the difference of the pump frequency. The experimental observations are well-reproduced by complementary MD simulation. There is no experimental and theoretical evidence that supports extraordinary slow dynamics in the high-frequency side of the HB OH band, which was reported before.

Molecular-level elucidation of hydration at biological membrane interfaces is of great importance for understanding biological processes. We studied ultrafast hydrogen-bond dynamics at a zwitterionic phosphatidylcholine/water interface by two-dimensional heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation (2D HD-VSFG) spectroscopy. The obtained 2D spectra confirm that the anionic phosphate and cationic choline sites are individually hydrated at the interface. Furthermore, the data show that the dynamics of water at the zwitterionic lipid interface is not a simple sum of the dynamics of the water species that hydrate to the separate phosphate and choline. The center line slope (CLS) analysis of the 2D spectra reveals that ultrafast hydrogen-bond fluctuation is not significantly suppressed around the phosphate at the zwitterionic lipid interface, which makes the hydrogen-bond dynamics look similar to that of the bulk water. The present study indicates that the hydrogen-bond dynamics at membrane interfaces is not determined only by the hydrogen bond to a specific site of the interface but is largely dependent on the water dynamics in the vicinity and other nearby moieties, through the hydrogen-bond network.

Elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of protein adsorption is of essential importance for further development of biotechnology. Here, we use interface-selective nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy to investigate protein charge at the air/water interface by probing the orientation of interfacial water molecules. We measured the Im χ spectra of hemoglobin, myoglobin, serum albumin and lysozyme at the air/water interface in the CH and OH stretching regions using heterodyne-detected vibrational sum frequency generation (HD-VSFG) spectroscopy, and we deduced the isoelectric point of the protein by monitoring the orientational flip-flop of water molecules at the interface. Strikingly, our measurements indicate that the isoelectric point of hemoglobin is significantly lowered (by about one pH unit) at the air/water interface compared to that in the bulk. This can be predominantly attributed to the modifications of the protein structure at the air/water interface. Our results also suggest that a similar mechanism accounts for the modification of myoglobin charge at the air/water interface. This effect has not been reported for other model proteins at interfaces probed by conventional VSFG techniques, and it emphasizes the importance of the structural modifications of proteins at the interface, which can drastically affect their charge profiles in a protein-specific manner. The direct experimental approach using HD-VSFG can unveil the changes of the isoelectric point of adsorbed proteins at various interfaces, which is of major relevance to many biological applications and sheds new light on the effect of interfaces on protein charge.