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The scope of this work is to develop a novel single-molecule imaging technique by combining atomic force microscopy (AFM) and optical fluorescence microscopy. The technique is used for characterizing the structural properties of multi-protein complexes. The high-resolution fluorescence microscopy and AFM are combined (FIONA-AFM) to allow for the identification of individual proteins in such complexes. This is achieved by labeling single proteins with fluorescent dyes and determining the positions of these fluorophores with high precision in an optical image. The same area of the sample is subsequently scanned by AFM. Finally, the two images are aligned and the positions of the fluorophores are displayed on top of the topographical data. Using quantum dots as fiducial markers in addition to fluorescently labeled proteins, fluorescence and AFM information can be aligned with an accuracy better than 10 nm, which is sufficient to identify single fluorescently labeled proteins in most multi-protein complexes. The limitations of localization precision and accuracy in fluorescence and AFM images are investigated, including their effects on the overall registration accuracy of FIONA-AFM hybrid images. This combination of the two complementary techniques opens a wide spectrum of possible applications to the study of protein interactions, because AFM can yield high resolution (5–10 nm) information about the conformational properties of multi-protein complexes while the fluorescence can indicate spatial relationships of the proteins within the complexes. Additionally, computer simulations are performed in order to validate the accuracy of the registration algorithm.
The thesis investigates the electrical transport properties of different π-conjugated organic semiconductors applied as active semiconducting material in organic field-effect transistor (OFET) devices. Theses organic materials are αω-dihexylquaterthiophene (DH4T), the tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) derivatives dibenzene-tetrathiafulvalene (DB-TTF) and dithiophene-tetrathiafulvalene (DT-TTF), and polytriarylamine (PTAA). The latter material is an amorphous polymer, the three others are small molecule oligomer materials. Different deposition methods were applied and compared. The investigations in the thesis treat the pure characterisation of the above materials with their different properties in OFET devices. Furthermore, the aim was to observe and analyse general rules and effects in OFETs depending on the structure, previous history, and the device scaling. Therefore, different tools and special analysing methods were developed and applied. These are a standard characterisation method for the classification of the used organic semiconductor, temperature dependent electrical characterisation investigating the electrical transport properties, the newly developed in situ measurement method of OFET devices, the downscaling of the OFET devices of channel length below 100 nm, and the lithographical structuring of a PTAA film.
Investigation of Intermolecular Interaction in Organic Thin Films by means of NEXAFS Spectroscopy
(2009)
The present work reports on the electron–vibron coupling in large organic molecules and particularly on the intermolecular interaction in molecular condensates. The optical and electrical properties of these organic systems are in the focus of attention due to their crucial importance for the development of (hybrid) organic electronic devices. In particular, the charge transport mechanism and hence the interaction between condensed molecules is a matter of debate [1–4]. In order to shed light on this interaction, the spectroscopic signatures of isolated molecules in the gas phase and their condensed counterparts have been studied. The applied technique, near–edge x–ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy, is a local probe with high chemical selectivity, well suited for the investigation of the electronic structure of molecular valence levels [5]. In the experimental part, the experimental set–up developed in this work is described with special attention to the characteristic issues of gas phase measurements, energy calibration and the subsequent data evaluation. The high quality gas phase and solid state NEXAFS spectra are analysed with respect to energy positions, shape and intensity of the sharp pi*–resonances characteristic for these aromatic molecules. Where applicable, a detailed Franck–Condon (FC) analysis of the vibronic fine structure has been performed, yielding additional information on the changes that occur upon solid state formation. Together with former results on vibrational features in large organic molecules, this information has been used to investigate the correlation of vibrational energies in the ground and electronically excited state. We find a relatively good agreement with other empirical studies on vibronic structures in photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) spectra of small molecules [6]. The molecular compounds investigated are in general believed to interact via weak van–der–Waals forces only. The present results however reveal distinct differences between the spectra of the gas and solid phase that can not be explained within the context of a mere interaction by dispersive forces. In detail, differential red–shifts of 0.1 to 0.3eV of transitions assigned to the aromatic system have been observed in the C–K spectra of benzene–tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (BTCDA), 1,4,5,8–naphthalene–tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (NTCDA), and 3,4,9,10–perylene–tetracarboxylic acid dianhydride (PTCDA) upon solid state formation. From BTCDA to PTCDA the shift increases, indicating an improving intermolecular interaction with molecular size or a closer molecular packing. In contrast, all transitions assigned to the anhydride carbon atom (C1) do not show any shift. For the O–K spectra, small changes in relative intensity have been observed for BTCDA and NTCDA. In case of PTCDA, a blue–shift of up to 0.2eV is evident for the OB 1sLEMO+1 transition. Theoretical models for the intermolecular interaction have been proposed in this work, based on a change of molecular geometry and interaction of adjacent molecules in the ground and excited state, respectively. While an interaction of adjacent molecular orbitals may explain the experimental findings for one particular molecule, this model falls short for a comprehensive explanation of all three dianhydrides. For an interaction in the excited state, the excitonic coupling with the neighbours attached at an angle, quantum chemical calculations yield no significant change in peak positions for NTCDA. Unfortunately, results for the stacked neighbours as well as the larger compound PTCDA are still lacking. For tris (8–quinolinol) aluminum (Alq3), the observed peak–shifts are restricted to just one unoccupied orbital, the LEMO+2, which is mainly localised at the phenoxide side of the quinolinol ligands. Although the shifts differ for the individual edges, the main interaction can therefore be assigned to this orbital. In summary, NEXAFS spectroscopy, if performed with great care in terms of experimental details and data analysis especially for the gas phase data, provides very detailed and highly interesting data on the changes of the electronic structure of organic molecules upon condensation. The present data can be applied as a reference for further experimental and (highly desired) theoretical investigations, which are needed for a comprehensive understanding of the complex interaction mechanisms between organic molecules.
This thesis was dedicated to the studies of the electronic and chemical properties of liquids and solutions using soft x-ray spectroscopies. The used photon-in-photon-out methods namely x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), x-ray emission spectroscopy (XES), and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) appeared to be an excellent choice for these studies. In the framework of this thesis, the necessary experimental setup for using the above mentioned experimental techniques on liquids was developed. Hereby, a new flow-through liquid cell was introduced which simplifies the studies of liquids and solutions. The cell design is very flexible and thus can be modified for gases and liquid/solid interfaces. With this cell it is possible to study the samples under well-controlled conditions (temperature and flow rate). The novel flow-through liquid cell is part of the new SALSA synchrotron endstation including an electron analyzer and a novel high-resolution, high-transmission soft x-ray spectrometer. The latter makes it possible to measure two-dimensional RIXS maps in a very short time, which include the full excitation and emission information in one plot. Making use of the new instrumentation, a variety of different liquids and solutions were investigated. As first system, aqueous solutions of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium deuteroxide (NaOD) were investigated. In the XAS as well as in the XES spectra a pronounced concentration dependence was found. At non-resonant energies, the spectra are dominated by the solvent and thus look similar to water. Making use of the pre-pre-edge in the absorption spectra which can exclusively be attributed to OH- / OD- it was possible to extract the resonant emission spectra of the ions which show an indication for proton dynamics during the core-hole lifetime. For the solid state NaOH XES spectra it was possible to reveal a high energetic shoulder and a low energetic shoulder at the high energy emission feature. These shoulders can be assigned to self-dissociation processes where OH- forms O2- ions and H2O. The study of NaOH was also of interest for the studies of the amino acids, which were in the focus of the next part, since the pH-values of the respective solutions were controlled by NaOH. In the next part of this thesis, amino acid solutions were investigated. Amino acids are the building blocks of peptides and proteins and thus important for life science. The investigated representatives were glycine, the simplest amino acid, and lysine, an amino acid with two amine groups. Both amino acids react on pH-value changes at the amine group where the local environment at the nitrogen atom changes (NH2 ↔ NH3+). A strong change of the spectra induced by this protonation/deprotonation could be found. Furthermore, for low pH-values (protonated amine groups) the amine groups are influenced by strong proton dynamics. First DFT calculations confirm the dissociation model of the amino acids. Qualitatively the high energy peak in the N K XES spectra can be attributed to the deprotonated amine group and the low energy area for the protonated amine group. Besides amino acids, alcohols and acids are important in biological processes. Therefore, the smallest alcohol (methanol) and the smallest carboxylic acid (acetic acid) were under investigation. For the liquid methanol XES spectra a very good agreement with DFT calculations of gas phase methanol could be found. This observation suggests that the influence of the environment (hydrogen bonding) on the spectra is small. The achieved spectra are in good agreement with DFT calculations found in literature. It was possible to selectively excite the two non-equivalent oxygen atoms in acetic acid and to reveal the carboxyl specific C K XES. The carbon XAS spectra showed strong differences compared to gas phase measurements which might be a hint for the influence of the hydrogen bond network. The investigation of the electronic and chemical properties of liquids and solutions is a very young field of research and the results presented in this thesis show that it is a very interesting topic. The presented results can be seen as the fundamental frame work for all following studies. With the understanding of basic, i.e., simple, systems as shown in this work it will be possible to understand complex biological systems in their native environment, e.g., peptides and proteins, which are the building blocks of life.
Semiconductor Quantum Dots (QDs) have been attracting immense interest over the last decade from both basic and application-orientated research because of their envisioned use as fundamental building blocks in non-classical device architectures. Their presumable ease of integration into existing semiconductor technology has bought them the reputation of being cost-efficiently scalable and renders them a place among the top candidates in a wide range of proposed quantum logic and quantum information processing schemes. These include the highly acclaimed use of QD as triggered sources of single pairs of entangled photons, which is a key ingredient of most of the intensivly investigated optical quantum cryptography operations. A big obstacle towards these goals are the pronounced asymmetries that are intrinsically present in all currently availabe semiconductor QD systems. They are a natural by-product that stems from the employed self-assembled growth methods and manifest in various forms such as shape-asymmetry, inhomogeneous strain distribution within the QD and concomittant piezo-elecric fields. These asymmetries in return give rise to distinct anisotropies in the optical properties of QDs, which in fact render their optical response classic. For device oriented research these anisotropies are therefore typically considered unwanted and actively researched to be controlled. They are, however, interesting from a fundamental point of view, as anisotropic QDs basically provide a testbed system for fundamental atom-like quantum physics with non-centrosymmetric potentials. As shall be shown in the current work, this gives rise to novel and interesting physics in its own right. Employing photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) we investigate the optical anisotropy of the radiative recombination of excitons confined to CdSe/ZnSe QDs. This is done by angle-dependent polarization-resolved PL. We demonstrate experimentally that the electron-hole exchange interaction in asymmetric QDs gives rise to an effective conversion of the optical polarization from linear to circular and vice versa. The experiment is succesfully modeled in the frame of an exciton pseudospin-formalism that is based on the exchange induced finestructure splitting of the radiative excitonic states and unambiguously proves that the observed polarization conversion is the continuous-wave equivalent to quantum beats between the exchange split states in the time domain. These results indicate that QDs may offer extended functionality beyond non-classical light sources in highly integrated all-optical device schemes, such as polarization converters or modulators. In a further extension we apply the exciton pseudospin-formalism to optical alignment studies and demonstrate how these can be used to directly measure the otherwise hidden symmetry distribution over an ensemble of QDs. This kind of measurement may be used on future optical studies in order to link optical data more directly to structural investigations, as it yields valuable information on capped QDs that cannot be looked at directly by topological methods. In the last part of this work we study the influence of an in-plane magnetic field on the optical anisotropy. We find that the optical axis of the linear polarization component of the photoluminescence signal either rotates in the opposite direction to that of the magnetic field or remains fixed to a given crystalline direction. A qualitative theoretical analysis based on the exciton pseudospin Hamiltonian unambiguously demonstrates that these effects are induced by isotropic and anisotropic contributions to the heavy-hole Zeeman term, respectively. The latter is shown to be compensated by a built-in uniaxial anisotropy in a magnetic field B=0.4 T, resulting in an optical response that would be expected for highly symmetric QDs. For a comprehensive quantitative analysis the full heavy-hole exciton k.p-Hamiltonian is numerically calculated and the resulting optical polarization is modeled. The model is able to quantitatively describe all experimental results using a single set of parameters. From this model it is explicitly seen that a optical response characteristic for high symmetry QDs may be obtained from an ensemble of asymmetric QDs without a crossing of the zero-field bright exciton states, which was required for application of QDs in non-classical light sources. It is clearly demonstrated that any scheme using in-plane magnetic fields to symmetrize the optical response has to take into account at least four optically active states instead of the two observed in the absence of magnetic fields. These findings may explain some of the major disagreement on recent entanglement studies in asymmetric QDs, as models that do not take the above result into account cannot be a priori expected to provide reliable results on excitonic Bell states.
The approach of using the combination of Ultraviolet (UPS) and Inverse Photoemission (IPS) to determine the transport levels in thin films of organic semiconductors is the scope of this work. For this matter all influences on the peak position and width in Photoelectron Spectroscopy are discussed with a special focus on organic semiconductors. Many of these influences are shown with experimental results of the investigation of diindenoperylene on Ag(111). These findings are applied to inorganic semiconductors silicon in order to establish the use of UPS and IPS on a well-understood system. Finally, the method is used to determine the transport level of several organic semiconductors (PTCDA, Alq3, CuPc, DIP, PBI-H4) and the corresponding exciton binding energies are calculated by comparison to optical absorption data.
Nuclear magnetic resonance has numerous applications for in vivo diagnostics. However, methods requiring homogeneous magnetic fields, particularly magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) techniques, have limited applicability in regions near or on anatomical boundaries that cause strong inhomogeneities. In cases where the shim system can not or just partly correct for these inhomogeneities, methods based on intermolecular multiple quantum coherence (iMQC) detection can provide an alternative solution for in vivo MRS. This dissertation presented the development, validation and application potential of a novel MRS pulse sequence detecting intermolecular zero-quantum coherences (iZQC) with special emphasis on in vivo experiments. In addition, the detection limit and spectral behaviour of iZQC-MRS under modelled realistic conditions were systematically approached for the first time. Based on the original sequence used to detect two dimensional (2D) iZQC-spectra, dubbed HOMOGENIZED, methodological development led to increased sensitivity and water suppression, and decreased T2-relaxation effects through the application of a frequency selective 90° RF-pulse in place of a non selective beta-pulse. Best water suppression was achieved by placing a pair of selective refocusing units immediately prior to the acquisition window. The same placement was found to be optimal also for single voxel localization units based on slice selective spin echo refocusing. By voxel selection before the iZQC-MRS sequence, the chemical shift artefact could be avoided. However, this led to significant residual signal from outside the voxel. Analytical derivations of signal evolution for several sequences presented in this dissertation provide useful additions to the iZQC MRS theory. In vivo applications of the developed sequence provided high quality spectra in the central nervous system of the rat, the mouse brain and in subcutaneous xenograft tumor grown on the thigh of the mouse. In all these 2D spectra, the limiting factor of the resolution in the indirect dimension was the digital sampling rate, rather than inhomogeneous line broadening. Nevertheless, linewidths of the cross-peaks were similar or narrower than along the direct axis, where the sampling rate was about ten times higher. The first MR spectroscopic investigation of the rat spinal cord at 17.6 T was performed. Through its insensitivity to macroscopic field inhomogeneities, the localized iZQC method allowed for the selection of larger voxels than conventional methods and still provided the same spectral resolution. This property was used also in tumor tissue to propel the relative signal to noise (SNR) efficiency of the iZQC spectroscopy for the first time above the SNR efficiency of a conventional sequence. Future applications for fast metabolite count in large inhomogeneous organs, like a tumor, are thinkable. Extensive simulations and phantom experiments assessed the limit of iZQC cross-peak detection in presence of local field distortions. The order of maximum volume ratio between dipole source and voxel was found to be between 0.1 % and 1 %. It is an essential conclusion of this study that the dominant effect of microscopic to mesoscopic inhomogeneities on iZQC spectra under general in vivo conditions, like for voxels greater than (1 mm)³ and metabolite concentrations in the millimolar range, is a cross-peak intensity reduction and not line broadening. The iZQC method provided resolution enhancement in comparison to conventional MRS even in the presence of clustered paramagnetic microparticles. However, the vision of iZQC spectroscopy in green leafs or the lung epithelium has to be, unfortunately, abandoned, because cross-peaks can be observed until the volume of the separating medium is much larger than the volume of local dipole sources. Intermolecular zero-quantum coherence spectroscopy remains an exciting field in NMR research on living organisms. It provides access to the monitoring of relative metabolite concentration changes in the presence of microscopic iron particles, which raises realistic hopes for new applications in studies using stained stem cells.
Contents List of Publications 1 Introduction 2 Basic concepts and instrumentation 2.1 Mathematical description of femtosecond laser pulses 2.2 Optical quantities and measurements 2.2.1 Intensity 2.2.2 Absorbance and Beer-Lambert law 2.3 Laser system 2.4 General software framework for scientific data acquisition and simulation 2.4.1 Core components 2.4.2 Program for executing a single measurement sequence 2.4.3 Scan program 2.4.4 Evolutionary algorithm optimization program 2.4.5 Applications of the software framework 2.5 Summary 3 Generation of ultrabroadband femtosecond pulses in the visible 3.1 Nonlinear optics 3.1.1 Nonlinear polarization and frequency conversion 3.1.2 Phase matching 3.2 Optical parametric amplification 3.3 Noncollinear optical parametric amplifier 3.4 Considerations and experimental design of NOPA 3.4.1 Options for broadening the NOPA bandwidth 3.4.2 Experimental setup 3.5 NOPA pulse characterization 3.5.1 Second harmonic generation frequency-resolved optical gating 3.5.2 Transient grating frequency-resolved optical gating 3.6 Compression and shaping methods for NOPA pulses 3.6.1 Grating compressor 3.6.2 Prism compressor 3.6.3 Chirped mirrors 3.6.4 Detuned zero dispersion compressor 3.6.5 Deformable mirror pulse shaper 3.6.6 Liquid crystal pulse shaper 3.7 Liquid crystal pulse shaper 3.7.1 Femtosecond pulse shapers 3.7.2 Experimental design and parameters 3.7.3 Optical setup of the LC pulse shaper 3.7.4 Calibrations of the pulse shaper 3.8 Adaptive pulse compression 3.8.1 Closed loop pulse compression 3.8.2 Open loop pulse compression 3.9 Conclusions 4 Coherent optical two-dimensional spectroscopy 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Theory of third order nonlinear optical spectroscopies 4.2.1 Response function, electric fields, and signal field 4.2.2 Signal detection with spectral interferometry 4.2.3 Evaluation of two-dimensional spectra and phasing 4.2.4 Selection and classification of terms in induced nonlinear polarization 4.2.5 Oscillatory character of measured signal 4.3 Previous experimental implementations 4.4 Inherently phase-stable setup using conventional optics only 4.4.1 Manipulation of pulse pairs as a basis for stability 4.4.2 Experimental setup 4.4.3 Measurement procedure 4.4.4 Data evaluation 4.5 First experimental results 4.5.1 Demonstration of phase stability 4.5.2 2D spectrum of Nile Blue at room temperature 4.6 Summary and outlook 5 Product accumulation for ultrasensitive femtochemistry 5.1 The problem of sensitivity in femtochemistry 5.2 Accumulation for increased sensitivity 5.2.1 Comparison of conventional and accumulative sensitivity 5.2.2 Schematics and illustrative example 5.3 Experimental setup 5.4 Calibration and modeling of accumulation 5.5 Experiments on indocyanine green 5.5.1 Calibration of the setup 5.5.2 Chirped pulse excitation 5.5.3 Adaptive pulse shaping 5.6 Conclusions 6 Ultrafast photoconversion of the green fluorescent protein 6.1 Green fluorescent protein 6.2 Experimental setup for photoconversion of GFP 6.3 Calibration of the setup for GFP 6.3.1 Model for concentration dynamics of involved GFP species 6.3.2 Estimate of sensitivity 6.4 Excitation power study 6.5 Time-resolved two-color experiment 6.6 Time-delayed unshaped 400 nm – shaped 800 nm pulse excitation 6.6.1 Inducing photoconversion with chirped pulses 6.6.2 Photoconversion using third order phase pulses 6.7 Conclusions 7 Applications of the accumulative method to chiral systems 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Chiral asymmetric photochemistry 7.2.1 Continuous-wave circularly polarized light 7.2.2 Controlled asymmetric photochemistry using femtosecond laser pulses 7.3 Sensitive and fast polarimeter 7.3.1 Polarimeter setup 7.3.2 Detected signal I(t) 7.3.3 Angular amplification 7.3.4 Performance of the polarimeter 7.4 Molecular systems and mechanisms for enantioselective quantum control 7.4.1 Binaphthalene derivatives 7.4.2 Photochemical helicene formation 7.4.3 Spiropyran/merocyanine chiroptical molecular switches 7.5 Summary 8 Summary Zusammenfassung Bibliography Acknowledgements
In this thesis, soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) studies of the electronic structure of selected organic molecules and liquids were carried out. The first part focuses on the used experimental techniques and the development of the instrumentation necessary for these studies, namely a soft x-ray spectrometer, and a temperature-controlled flow-through liquid cell. The former was optimized by a special analytical ray tracing method developed exclusively for this purpose. Due to its high transmission, the spectrometer facilitates a novel experimental approach of recording comprehensive 'RIXS maps', which are 2-dimensional plots of x-ray scattering intensities as a function of both, excitation and emission photon energy. The liquid cell extends these possibilities to the study of liquids, especially the interaction of molecules in liquids and their chemical reactions under well-controlled conditions. Organic molecules have attracted considerable attention in the last decade. The intense research activities related to these materials have two main motivations: on the one hand, organic molecules have a technological application as building blocks of organic semiconductors, while, on the other hand, organic molecules are the functional elements in biological systems. In order to cost-effectively produce optimized organic electronic devices, a fundamental knowledge of the electronic properties of the organic molecules interface is necessary. Therefore, many studies of the electronic structure of potential candidates for organic electronics exist. Two of these candidates, namely C60 and well-ordered multilayers PTCDA on a Ag(111) surface are investigated in this thesis. For the study of C60 molecules, a comprehensive 'RIXS map' was recorded and analyzed. The RIXS map taken in only 25 minutes allows a quantitative analysis of energy losses, yielding for example the HOMO-LUMO distance. It also identifies a core-excitonic state and facilitates a quantitative comparison of its binding energy with that of valence excitons in C60. Furthermore, decay channel-selective partial fluorescence yield XAS spectra can be extracted from the RIXS map, yielding information on the population of the core-excitonic state as a function of excitation energy. As a second model system of organic molecules relevant for organic electronics, PTCDA was chosen. The complex electronic structure of the occupied states of a highly ordered, flat-lying PTCDA multilayer on a Ag(111) surface was investigated by symmetry-resolved resonant x-ray emission spectroscopy. The rapidly occurring beam damage effects were characterized on the basis of irradiation-time dependent series of C and O x-ray emission spectra. Upon varying the excitation energy and emission geometry, atom- and symmetry-specific carbon K emission spectra with negligible beam damage effects were obtained that allow to distinguish between electronic states with sigma and pi symmetry. A density functional theory calculation of the PTCDA molecule reproduces the energy positions of the most prominent emission features remarkably well. In addition, the energy positions of the sigma and pi emissions agree well with the calculated energies of the respective orbitals. In order to shed light on the second aspect of organic molecules, namely their role in biological systems, first a detailed investigation of the electronic structure and proton dynamics of liquid water as the medium of most chemical and biochemical reactions was carried out. Therefore, a comprehensive oxygen K RIXS map of liquid water was recorded and analyzed in great detail. A temperature-dependent comparison with XAS and RIXS data of D2O, NaOH, and NaOD leads to the conclusion, that ultra-fast dissociation takes place in liquid water on the timescale of the oxygen 1s core hole lifetime, resulting in a characteristic spectral contribution in the RIXS spectra. The dissociation is promoted by intact hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. In consequence, the rate of dissociation directly depends on the initial hydrogen bond configuration. In the next step towards biologically relevant systems, the nitrogen K edges of the amino acids glycine and histidine were investigated in powderous form as well as in their native environment, namely in aqueous solution. X-ray absorption and emission spectra of the aqueous solutions were analyzed at pH-values of 6 and for glycine also at pH 12 and compared to the spectra of powders. A pH-value of 12 causes deprotonation of the amino group, leading to significant changes in the nitrogen spectra as compared to pH 6. The results from these four examples demonstrate that a wealth of novel information can be obtained by using the new experimental tools developed in this thesis, namely a highly sensitive x-ray spectrometer and a flow-through liquid cell.