Dynamics of water confined on a nanometer length scale in reverse micelles: ultrafast infrared vibrational echo spectroscopy

The dynamics of water, confined on a nanometer length scale (1.7 to 4.0 nm) in sodium bis-(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate reverse micelles, is directly investigated using frequency resolved infrared vibrational echo experiments. The data are compared to bulk water and salt solution data. The experimentally determined frequency-frequency correlation functions show that the confined water dynamics is substantially slower than bulk water dynamics and is size dependent. The fastest dynamics (approximately 50 fs) is more similar to bulk water, while the slowest time scale dynamics is much slower than water, and, in analogy to bulk water, reflects the making and breaking of hydrogen bonds.