Optical and environmental control of excited state dynamics: electrocyclic ring-opening and molecular switches

在这项由化学系化学结构、动力学和机制计划资助的奖项中，密歇根大学的Roseanne Sension教授和她的研究生计划使用超快光谱学来研究对许多自然和合成光开关至关重要的系统的开环反应。这些系统中的大多数都包含一个六元环，该环打开形成螺旋链状分子。在这里计划的工作中，将使用光脉冲的性质、环境的性质和环周围的化学取代模式作为参数，以了解控制开环反应的分子和化学基础。这些研究还将探索如何塑造光脉冲来控制动力学，从而控制这些光开关中心的开环反应的产量。这项工作使物理学和化学的研究生和本科生接触到化学物理和光学物理的最先进的研究。通过让研究人员参与课程开发，并使用“分子电影”，即基于超快光谱测量结果的分子动力学模拟，将宏观性质与化学体系的动力学联系起来，将研究结果整合到本科物理化学课程中。

In this award, funded by the Chemical Structure, Dynamics and Mechanisms Program of the Division of Chemistry, Professor Roseanne Sension of the University of Michigan along with her graduate students plan to use ultrafast spectroscopy to study the ring-opening reactions of systems central to a number of natural and synthetic photoswitches. Most of these systems contain a six-member ring that opens to form a helical chain-like molecule. In the work planned here the properties of light pulses, the nature of the environment, and the chemical substitution pattern around the ring will be used as parameters to understand the molecular and chemical basis for control of the ring-opening reactions. The investigations will also explore the way in which optical pulses may be sculpted to control the dynamics and thus the yield of the ring-opening reactions central to these photoswitches. This work exposes graduate and undergraduate students in physics and chemistry to state-of-the-art research in chemical physics and optical physics. The results of the research are integrated into the undergraduate physical chemistry curriculum through involvement of researchers in curriculum development and through the use of "molecular movies," simulations of molecular dynamics based on the results of ultrafast spectroscopic measurements, which connect macroscopic properties to the dynamics of chemical systems.