Photodissociation Spectroscopy of Cold Protonated Synephrine: Surprising Differences between IR–UV Hole-Burning and IR Photodissociation Spectroscopy of the O–H and N–H Modes

We report the UV and IR photofragmentation spectroscopies of protonated synephrine in a cryogenically cooled Paul trap. Single (UV or IR) and double (UV-UV and IR-UV) resonance spectroscopies have been performed and compared to quantum chemistry calculations, allowing the assignment of the lowest-energy conformer with two rotamers depending on the orientation of the phenol hydroxyl (OH) group. The IR-UV hole burning spectrum exhibits the four expected vibrational modes in the 3 μm region, i.e., the phenol OH, C β -OH, and two NH 2 + stretches. The striking difference is that, among these modes, only the free phenol OH mode is active through IRPD. The protonated amino group acts as a proton donor in the internal hydrogen bond and displays large frequency shifts upon isomerization expected during the multiphoton absorption process, leading to the so-called IRMPD transparency. More interestingly, while the C β -OH is a proton acceptor group with moderate frequency shift for the different conformations, this mode is still inactive through IRPD.