EXAFS and molecular dynamics studies of ionic solutions

This paper focuses on recent advances in the X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) analysis of ionic solutions. The asymmetry of radial distribution functions g(r) associated with the solvent molecules surrounding the ions has to be taken into account to perform a reliable structural analysis. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations provide reliable g(r)'s which can be used as starting models in the XAS data analysis. The combined MD-XAS investigation reduces meaningfully the indetermination of the structural parameters, especially for coordination numbers and Debye-Waller factors. Double-electron excitation channels can be present in the XAS spectra of ionic solutions and they have to be accounted for in the background extraction. The ability of the XAS technique to probe three-body correlation functions in ionic solutions with the aid of MD g(r1, r2, θ) has been shown. The analysis of the low-k region of the spectra allows the detection of a weak but significant hydrogen structural signal. The XAS technique is especially well suited to determine the detailed shape of the nearest-neighbor peak in the atom-atom pair correlation functions of disordered systems. The information that they contain about the short-range atom-atom pairwise interactions can be very helpful for specifying and properly modifying model potentials used in MD simulations.