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

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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.