Abstract
Assessment of van der Waals (VDW) interactions is fundamental to all of the central quest of structure that regulates the biological function. VDW interactions contributing to intramolecular weak hydrogen bonding are regarded as an important force to regulate the thermal stimuli-sensitive function of sulfobetaine methacrylate, DMAPS. We present here the conversion from the thermal-motion form at room temperature to the weak-hydrogen-bonded form against thermal motion as a terahertz spectral change with a definite isosbestic point from an absorption peak of one form to the other. Vibrational absorptions are used as a probe for assessing VDW interactions in conjunction with highly reliable and well-established density functional theory (DFT) calculations for analysis. Complicated spectral features and uncertain conformations of DMAPS in the amorphous state are clearly resolved under the polarizable continuum model and the dispersion correction for the pure DFT calculations.