Spectroscopic investigations and computational study of sulfur trioxide-pyridine complex

The Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and FT-Raman spectra of sulfur trioxide-pyridine complex were recorded and analyzed. The potential-dependent surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) was recorded from an electrochemically roughened silver electrode. The vibrational wave numbers of the compound were computed using the Hartree-Fock/6-31G* basis and compared with the experimental values. The presence of strong pyridine ring vibrations in the SERS spectrum reveals the interaction between the pyridine ring and the silver surface. The molecule is adsorbed on the silver surface with the pyridine ring in a tilted orientation. The direction of charge-transfer contribution to the SERS is discussed from the frontier orbital theory. The value of the calculated first hyperpolarizability is comparable to those reported for similar structures, which makes this molecule an attractive object for future studies of nonlinear optics. The optimized geometrical parameters of the title compound are in agreement with similar reported structures. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.