Normal mode vibrations of Al₂Cl₆

Static pictures of molecules are only half-true because atoms are always in motion. Complex motion of molecules can be decomposed into a finite set of "elementary" moves called "normal modes" with defined frequences which can be measured by infrared and Raman spectroscopy and calculated by several methods.

Molecule Al₂Cl₆ is assumed as a short-living entity in liquid AlCl₃. Its properties are responsible for dramatic decrease of density when solid AlCl₃ is melted. The normal mode vibration results are based on a new polarizable force field for MD simulations on molten salts containing Li⁺, Al⁺³, Cl^-, and I^-. There are 18 modes for this molecule. First two slowest modes follow.

   24.6 cm^-1       64.4 cm^-1

Show all modes (18 animated pictures of about 50KB each)

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