Espalhamento de elétrons por moléculas análogas da desoxirribose: álcool α-tetrahidrofurfuril e tetrahidrofurano

Abstract

The progress of theoretical and experimental studies of ionizing radiation interaction processes with DNA [1]–[7] demonstrated that such radiation when interacting with biological systems can lead to the production of a significant number of secondary electrons. These electrons, in turn, carry the inelastic collisions with biomolecules, leading to the excited states (vibrational and electronic states) and the production of resonant states. Recent studies [1], [3], [6] report that those processes have the actual ability to cause cell mutation or necrosis, due to single and double break of the DNA chain, having therefore, great potential harmful to any living tissue. In order to better understand these interactions of low-energy electrons with the species found in biological systems, we used in this thesis the Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy to study the differential (DCS) and integral cross sections (ICS). The region of impact energies used was able to promote excitation of vibrational levels of the tetrahydrofuran (THF) and α-tetrahydrofurfuryl alcohol (THFA), and bands of electronic Rydberg states of TFA. These molecular species were chosen because they are chemically similar to sugar rings present in phosphate-deoxyribose structure, DNA constituents, and the THFA recently identified as a best analogous option for deoxyribose structure, when compared to their similar chemical species, the THF molecule. The electron impact energies used for THFA, were 20, 30, 40 and 50eV, while the angular interval of the scattered electrons was 10 ° - 90 °. The THF molecule was studied for energies of 15, 20, 30 and 50eV, while scattering processes were studied in the angular range of 15º - 90º. In this sense, the DCS's and ICS's of THFA showed subtle difference from those obtained by Khakoo et al. [8] for THF, because of their different physical and chemical properties. The role of the dipole moment and polarizability of the molecules in the electron scattering process was observed, especially its effects on DCS's for low scattering angles (≤30 °). Theoretical calculations, carried out by the theoretical part of this research group, were used also in order to compare with the experimental data presented here, resulting in an excellent agreement, which led to confirmation of the models used. In addition, there was a review of work of Garland et al. [9], which has shown that the energy range and the few vibrational modes considered in their work, derived from Allan [10], were underestimating the role of vibrational excitation with respect to completion of studies of the transport properties. The presentation of this work firstly includes the important theoretical background for data analysis and theoretical calculations performed. Posteriorly, is presented a description of the Electron Energy Loss Spectrometer used and the data analysis framework applied. Finally, the experimental and theoretical data at work and discussions are presented. Additionally, is made a review of the set of vibrational states excitations data of THF used in other studies published in the literature for obtaining electron transport properties of this gas.