North East Ultrafast Transient Absorption Spectroscopy Facility

这个独特的国家超快瞬态吸收光谱（和显微镜）设施旨在填补东北部战略上和至关重要的研究基础设施缺口。瞬态吸收光谱是一个关键工具，使科学家能够探测光激发（例如激光）形成的短寿命高能物质的身份，形成和命运。一旦分子或材料吸收了光，它可能会遵循许多可能的途径，包括再发射，热弛豫，能量或电子转移和化学反应（包括分解）。在激发后的各种时间延迟下用宽带UV-NIR光探测能够捕获差异光谱，提供关于电子激发态（其具有与基态不同的吸收光谱）及其寿命（其取决于激发物质的电子状态和命运）的信息。这些过程发生在一系列的时间尺度上，主要是从飞秒到微秒的能量或电荷转移和化学反应。这些信息在化学、物理、生物和工程领域至关重要。瞬态吸收光谱是一个重要的工具，如光合生物，多激子产生半导体量子点和可打印的光致发光材料中的电荷重组的能量收集过程的基本理解。Helios-EOS火焰瞬态吸收光谱仪将使我们能够更广泛地了解化学反应和光诱导过程中发生的物理现象的整个时间尺度。这将促进和开辟新的研究领域，促进与物理，化学/合成生物学和工程领域的合作，并将使东北部的光谱学能力具有国际竞争力。凭借广泛的时间和光谱窗口，以及显微镜扩展和纽卡斯尔大学的操作实验专业知识，它将提供解决阻止新型光电器件商业化的科学挑战所需的关键知识（稳定性，转换效率等）。该国家设施将减少对国际合作者的依赖，提高研究能力和雄心，并加强东北地区提供光谱学家和材料科学家的能力。该国家设施所实现的多学科科学支持了EPSRC的所有四项繁荣成果和四项产业战略重大挑战。它将支持用于传感器和通信设备的光响应分子和材料的开发，这些传感器和通信设备可以传输或由光驱动，用于人工智能和数据驱动经济的应用。该设施将提供关于太阳能电池和人工光合装置中电荷分离、积累和重组的信息，用于清洁增长和未来流动性的可持续燃料和原料（如绿色电力和运输用氢）。它将通过支持设计新的光疗或生物成像等诊断工具来解决老龄化社会的创新问题。这些重大挑战与纽卡斯尔大学及其周边机构的研究支柱相一致，位于东北部的一个设施将支持区域，国家和国际合作，以加速这些社会重要领域的发现和创新。它还将支持从原子到系统的光物质相互作用的蓝天研究，这些研究将对未来的创新产生长期影响。

This unique national facility for ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy (and microscopy) aims to fulfil a strategically and critically important research infrastructure gap in the North East.Transient absorption spectroscopy is a key tool that enables scientists to probe the identity, formation and fate of short-lived, energetic species formed on excitation with light (e.g. from a laser). Once a molecule or material has absorbed light, there are a number of possible pathways it could follow, including re-emission, thermal relaxation, energy or electron transfer and a chemical reaction (including decomposition). Probing with broad-band UV-NIR light at various time delays after excitation enables difference spectra to be captured, providing information on the electronic excited states (which have distinct absorption spectra from the ground state) and their lifetime (which depends on the electronic state and fate of the excited species). These processes occur over a range of timescales, mostly ranging from femtoseconds to microseconds for energy or charge-transfer and chemical reactivity. The information is vital across chemistry, physics, biology and engineering. Transient absorption spectroscopy is a vital tool for fundamental understanding of processes such as energy harvesting in photosynthetic organisms, multi-exciton generation semiconductor quantum dots and charge-recombination in printable photovoltaics. The Helios-EOS Fire Transient Absorption Spectrometer will give us access to the entire timescale of physical phenomena that take place during chemical reactions and light-induced processes more broadly. This will foster and open new research areas, stimulating collaborations with groups working in physics, chemical/synthetic biology and engineering, and will make spectroscopy capabilities in the North East internationally competitive. With the broad temporal and spectral window, together with microscope extension and Newcastle University expertise of operando experiments, it will provide critical knowledge required to address the scientific challenges preventing commercialisation of novel optoelectronic devices (stability, conversion efficiency etc.). The national facility will reduce the need to depend on international collaborators, increasing the capacity and ambition of the research, and strengthens the North East region's capacity to provide for spectroscopists and materials scientists.The multidisciplinary science enabled by the national facility underpins all four EPSRC Prosperity Outcomes and the four Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges. It will support the development of light-responsive molecules and materials for sensors and communication devices that transmit or are powered by light for applications in AI and the Data Driven Economy. The facility will provide information on charge-separation, accumulation and recombination in solar cells and artificial photosynthetic devices for sustainable fuels and feedstocks for Clean Growth and Future Mobility (such as green power and hydrogen for transport). It will address innovation for the Ageing Society by supporting the design of new phototherapies or diagnostic tools such as bioimaging.These grand challenges align with the research pillars at Newcastle University and the surrounding institutions, and a facility situated in the North East will support regional, national and international collaboration to accelerate discoveries and innovation in these societally important areas. It will also support blue-skies research in light-matter interactions from atoms to systems that will have long-term impact in future innovation.