The OH stretching region infrared spectra of low density amorphous solid water and polycrystalline ice Ih

The transmission spectra in the intramolecular stretching region have been measured for thin films of H2O and D2O polycrystalline ice Ih and amorphous solid water. The data have been reduced to obtain the complex refractive index in this region via an iterative procedure designed to account for reflection and interference losses. Details of this procedure are described. The values which result from this analysis are converted to give the imaginary part of the dielectric permittivity as a function of wavelength for each sample. In this form the spectra are examined and compared to one another, with regard to recent experimental and theoretical studies. We conclude that it is difficult to obtain detailed structural information for the amorphous solid from an analysis of the OH (OD) stretching vibrational spectrum alone.