Objetivo
Chemical reaction mechanisms are at the core of fundamental science questions (like the functionality of biological molecules), as well as important technological advances (like the development of new materials). Understanding reaction mechanisms with atomic detail promotes both basic understanding of natural phenomena and knowledge-based technological applications. Despite the giant steps in the last decades in understanding chemical reactivity and achieving more control over chemical reactions at the atomic level, current knowledge comes mainly from spectroscopic and dynamics techniques which probe only a small fraction of the potential energy surface.
We propose a different approach: to use Ultrafast Electron Diffraction (UED) to study chemical, physical and biological phenomena by imaging the structure of the intermediates involved as a function of time, all the way from reactants to products. In UED, a short laser pulse triggers the dynamics and diffraction of a short burst of electrons probes the transient structures at ultrashort intervals at the atomic/molecular level. The novelty of the technique has been demonstrated in gas phase as well as surface and materials science problems but there is a lot of room for improvement.
If successful, we will construct a novel, state of the art UED instrument and use it to : (1) Probe the structural change during relaxation of photoexcited DNA, seeking to identify the contribution of spectroscopically dark channels, detectable only with UED, and (2) Image transient structures in reaction dynamics problems involving cluster chemistry and conical intersections
Ámbito científico
Convocatoria de propuestas
FP7-PEOPLE-2010-RG
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Régimen de financiación
MC-IRG - International Re-integration Grants (IRG)Coordinador
70013 Irakleio
Grecia