Time Resolved Solid State Structural Studies Across the Picosecond to Microsecond Time Domains

随着新的同步加速器设备的出现以及激光技术的进步，首次有可能进行新型实验和开发尖端方法来研究物种的结构，这些物种是许多化学反应的关键，但其寿命从几纳秒到几微秒不等。了解这些短命物种的结构将有助于设计在电子和传感器行业具有潜在应用的新型智能材料。为了帮助理解这一点，在这个项目中，我们计划开发制作分子电影的技术，以便我们可以观察分子与来自激光的光线相互作用时的变化。电子工业中使用的许多新材料都是固体，人们很早就认识到，在晶体固体的原子水平上确定完整三维结构的最佳方法是使用X射线衍射。到目前为止，这种结晶学技术只允许在反应的开始或结束时确定材料的结构，而不是在反应过程中。然而，使用新的钻石同步加速器产生的高能X射线，再加上脉冲激光的使用，情况发生了变化，在这个项目的过程中，将有可能将时间维度引入结晶学实验，并在分子与激光相互作用时激发时获得分子的完整三维结构。这种新的方法被称为光结晶学。红外光谱是另一种被广泛使用的技术，用于获得寿命很短的活性物种的结构信息，但到目前为止，几乎所有的IR研究都是在溶液中进行的，而不是在固体中进行的，因为许多电子工业感兴趣的材料都显示了他们最感兴趣的性质。在这个项目中，我们将首次开发红外方法来获得固态中寿命为纳秒的物种的结构信息。因此，通过结合光晶学和时间分辨红外技术，我们将能够以一种前所未有的方式建立寿命在纳秒到微秒范围内的物种的结构，并获得对化学家、物理学家和材料科学家重要的广泛的新科学信息。我们还将为该项目的博士研究生提供一系列结晶学、光谱和合成技术方面的高质量培训，以便他/她在未来发展这一新的科学领域处于独特的地位。

With the advent of new synchrotron facilities coupled with the advances in laser technology it is possible, for the first time, to carry out new types of experiment and develop cutting edge methodologies for studying the structures of species that are key to many chemical reactions but which have lifetimes ranging from only a few nanoseconds to a few microseconds. An understanding of the structure of these short-lived species will help in the design of new smart materials with potential applications in the electronics and sensor industries. To help with this understanding, in this projects we plan to develop techniques for making molecular movies so that we can watch how molecules change as they interact with rays of light from lasers. Many of the new materials used in the electronics industry are solids and it has long been recognised that the best way to determine the full three-dimensional structure at the atomic level of a crystalline solid is to use X-ray diffraction. Until now this crystallographic technique has only allowed the structure of the material to be determined at the beginning or end of a reaction, and not during it. However, using the high energy X-rays generated by the new diamond synchrotron coupled with the use of pulsed lasers, the situation has changed, and during the course of this project it will be possible to bring the dimension of time into the crystallographic experiment and obtain the full three-dimensional structures of molecules as they become excited when they interact with laser light. This new methodology is called photocrystallography .IR spectroscopy is another technique that has been used extensively for obtaining information on the structures of reactive species that have very short lifetimes, but until now, almost all the IR studies have been carried out in solution rather than in the solid state where many materials of interest to the electronics industry display their most interesting properties. In this project, we will, for the first time, develop IR methods of obtaining structural information on species with nanosecond lifetimes in the solid state. Thus, by combining the photocrystallographic and time resolved IR techniques we will be able to establish the structures of species with lifetimes in the nanosecond to microsecond range in a way that has never been possible before and obtain a wide range of new scientific information that will be of importance to chemists, physicists and material scientists. We will also provide top quality training for the Ph D student on the project in a range of crystallographic, spectroscopic and synthetic techniques, so that he/she will be in a unique position to develop this new area of science in the future.