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Derrick S F Crothers

Publications and source records attributed to Derrick S F Crothers.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Basic molecular mechanisms underlying complex permittivity of water and ice.

Four dielectric-loss frequency dependences epsilon''j(nu), j = 1-4, which constitute a basis for underlying far-infrared (FIR) spectra of water and ice, are briefly analyzed. The relevant molecular mechanisms are (a) free-like libration of a permanent dipole in a hat potential, (b) elastic vibration of a nonrigid dipole along the H-bond (HB), (c) elastic reorientation of a permanent dipole around this bond, and (d) vibration of HB water molecules transverse to the HB direction. A semiphenomenological (SP) approach, based on analytical calculation of the spectrum of autocorrelation function, is applied. The total loss curve epsilon''(nu), accounting for these mechanisms and presented for liquid water at 27 and 81.4 degrees C, for supercooled water at -5.6 degrees C, and for ice at -7 degrees C, demonstrates a very good agreement with experimental spectra. A simple formula is proposed for an "association factor" zeta relating the dipole moments mu(perpendicular) and mu(q) of transversally and longitudinally (with respect to HB direction) vibrating molecules. The parametrization of the model yields for T < 300 K a sharp increase of this factor zeta with a decrease of temperature.

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Microscopic models for dielectric relaxation in disordered systems.

It is shown how the Debye rotational diffusion model of dielectric relaxation of polar molecules (which may be described in microscopic fashion as the diffusion limit of a discrete time random walk on the surface of the unit sphere) may be extended to yield the empirical Havriliak-Negami (HN) equation of anomalous dielectric relaxation from a microscopic model based on a kinetic equation just as in the Debye model. This kinetic equation is obtained by means of a generalization of the noninertial Fokker-Planck equation of conventional Brownian motion (generally known as the Smoluchowski equation) to fractional kinetics governed by the HN relaxation mechanism. For the simple case of noninteracting dipoles it may be solved by Fourier transform techniques to yield the Green function and the complex dielectric susceptibility corresponding to the HN anomalous relaxation mechanism.

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