High-resolution resonant inelastic soft X-ray scattering applied to liquids

Highlights: ► Vibrational excitations in liquids resolved in RIXS are observed. ► Soft vibrational modes are quenched in the RIXS process. ► Intermolecular dipole–dipole interaction influences spectral features. ► Influence of room temperature is excitations observed. -- Abstract: The brilliance of modern synchrotron radiation sources and capabilities of new instrumentation facilitate resonant inelastic soft X-ray scattering of liquids and molecular materials with high spectral quality. Especially, when the energy resolution approaches the natural line widths a detailed analysis provides information about local potential surfaces, dynamic coupling between nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom, and intermolecular interactions. After briefly commenting on various sample handling systems we review the recent high-resolution RIXS results on liquid acetone. The experimental RIXS spectra excited at the O K edge demonstrate that the CO stretching mode dominates the vibrational progressions, and that softer modes are little affected by the nuclear dynamics in the intermediate state. It is shown that intermolecular coupling can be neglected in this specific case, and it is predicted that such interaction significantly broadens spectral features in liquids with larger dipole–dipole interaction. Analysis of the data further shows that initial state thermal excitations at room temperature have a noticeable influence on the spectral features