POWRE: The Use of Stark Spectroscopy to Probe Molecular Excited States in the Condensed Phase

这个由MPS多学科活动办公室（OMA）资助的妇女研究和教育专业机会（POWRE）项目的奖项支持卡内基梅隆大学Linda Peteanu教授的研究和教育活动。这项研究旨在将她实验室现有的技术扩展到一个新的领域——材料科学，并通过电子结构计算来增强她的实验工作。利用斯塔克效应光谱法对极性多烯进行电吸收测量。POWRE项目提供的机会将增强Peteanu教授的研究潜力，以及她对本科生、研究生和博士后科学家的教育指导。Peteanu的研究将探索极性多烯的实验测量和计算电子性质之间差异的来源，如果没有充分考虑溶剂化效应，这种差异可能很大。本研究结果将有助于更好地理解聚合物和玻璃的非线性光学性质。这项工作最终不仅有利于制造，而且有助于理解蛋白质环境中生物分子的光化学。

This award of the Professional Opportunities for Women in Research and Education (POWRE) program funded through the MPS Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA) supports the research and educational activities of Professor Linda Peteanu of Carnegie-Mellon University. The research aims to extend the techniques currently existing in her laboratory to a new area, materials science, and to augment her experimental work with electronic structure calculations. Electroabsorption measurements will be made on polar polyenes using Stark-effect spectroscopy.The opportunity afforded through the POWRE program will enhance Professor Peteanu's research potential as well as her educational mentoring of undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral scientists. Peteanu's investigations will explore the source of discrepancies between experimentally measured and computed electronic properties for polar polyenes, which can be large if solvation effects are not adequately accounted for. The results of this research will provide a better understanding of the non-linear optical properties of polymers and glasses. This work could ultimately benefit not only manufacturing but also an understanding of the photochemistry of biological molecules in a protein environment.