Research

We use ultrafast multidimensional spectroscopic techniques to explore the photochemistry and photophysics of natural light harvesting complexes, model systems, and photocatalysts, spanning research interests in biology, chemistry, and physics.    

The Anna group uses ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy to understand photoinitiated processes and dynamics. In order to explore these processes we employ multidimensional spectroscopic methods in both the visible and infrared spectral regions. The major benefit of employing multidimensional spectroscopic techniques is that the resulting spectrum is a frequency-frequency correlation map where each excitation frequency is correlated to each detection frequency. This enables for direct information on couplings, mechanistic pathways and system-bath interactions to be obtained. 

Electronic spectroscopy can be used to gain insight into the photoinitiated dynamics of systems where there are distinct spectroscopic features in the visible spectrum that can be mapped back to structural aspects of the system. However, spectroscopic reporters for different states of the system may not always be resolvable in the visible spectral region. In this scenario one can benefit from employing vibrational spectroscopy, where specific groups of nuclei have distinct vibrational features that are very sensitive to the solvent environment. We employ both visible and infrared spectroscopies to explore dynamics and photoinitiated processes.