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

在这个奖项，由化学系的化学结构，动力学和机制计划资助，密歇根大学的Roseanne Sension教授沿着她的研究生计划使用超快光谱学来研究系统的开环反应，这些反应对许多天然和合成的光开关至关重要。大多数这些系统包含一个六元环，打开形成螺旋链状分子。在这里计划的工作中，光脉冲的性质，环境的性质和环周围的化学取代模式将被用作参数，以了解控制开环反应的分子和化学基础。 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的开环反应的产率。这项工作使物理和化学专业的研究生和本科生接触到化学物理和光学物理方面最先进的研究。研究结果通过研究人员参与课程开发并通过使用“分子电影”，基于超快光谱测量结果的分子动力学模拟，将宏观特性与化学系统的动力学联系起来，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.