Picosecond Laser Spectroscopy System for Undergraduate Laboratory

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This project, involving picosecond laser methodology, is designed to stimulate the imaginations of undergraduates and to illustrate the role of modern spectroscopy in chemical research. Experiments conducted with the system will introduce advanced undergraduate students to modern laser spectroscopy and to concepts important in liquid-state photochemical reaction dynamics; electronic excited-state lifetimes and energy transfer; electron transfer; photobiological phenomena; orientational and structural relaxation dynamics in viscous liquids, polymer solutions and liquid crystals; and nonlinear optics including stimulated light scattering, all-optical switching and other effects. The interface between chemistry and materials science will be illustrated by experiments on several classes of important condensed-phase materials. This Instrumentation and Laboratory Improvement (ILI) award from the Chemical Instrumetation Program will help the Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to acquire picosecond laser instrumentation that will be used to enhance undergraduate laboratory instruction.