Toward a simple molecular understanding of sum frequency generation at air-water interfaces

Second-order vibrational spectroscopies successfully isolate signals from interfaces, but they report on intermolecular structure in a complicated and indirect way. Here we adapt a perspective on vibrational response developed for bulk spectroscopies to explore the microscopic fluctuations to which sum frequency generation (SFG), a popular surface-specific measurement, is most sensitive. We focus exclusively on inhomogeneous broadening of spectral susceptibilities for OH stretching of HOD as a dilute solute in D{sub 2}O. Exploiting a simple connection between vibrational frequency shifts and an electric field variable, we identify several functions of molecular orientation whose averages govern SFG. The frequency-dependence of these quantities is well captured by a pair of averages, involving alignment of OH and OD bonds with the surface normal at corresponding values of the electric field. The approximate form we obtain for SFG susceptibility highlights a dramatic sensitivity to the way a simulated liquid slab is partitioned for calculating second-order response