Final Report Summary - PORPHDYN (STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF PORPHYRIN-BASED MATERIALS IN SOLUTION vs. INTERFACES)
Transition metal based materials (e.g. porphyrins) are involved in more than 10,000 technological applications in various fields such as chemistry, biology, medicine, and nanotechnology. Despite this, there is still very little known about the electronic structure dynamics of these materials under realistic conditions, i.e. in room temperature, solutions, at ambient pressure, in the presence of counter-ions, or of in-situ functional porphyrin aggregates deposited on the respective substrates. Such missing knowledge could allow scientists to enhance on the functionality of these materials.
We have succeeded to construct novel analytical lab in Berlin linking the Helmholtz-Zentrum and Freie Universität for the determination of the electronic structure of wide range of transition metal complexes (including porphyrins) in bulk solutions, at liquid-solid interfaces, and after assembly on substrates of practical relevance under ‘static’ conditions; using X-ray absorption, emission and photo-electron spectroscopies. Furthermore, we have probed the electronic and geometric structural changes upon photoexcitation of such complexes, and their evolution over time from femtoseconds to hundreds of picoseconds by means of time resolved photoelectron using the newly constructed high harmonic generation lab. Advance theoretical modeling allowed us to transfer the experimental data to structural information using ab initio calculation. Our achievements allow us to investigate currently new complexes that can be used for carbon dioxide reduction and renewable energy based on another EU project named DIACAT.
We have succeeded to construct novel analytical lab in Berlin linking the Helmholtz-Zentrum and Freie Universität for the determination of the electronic structure of wide range of transition metal complexes (including porphyrins) in bulk solutions, at liquid-solid interfaces, and after assembly on substrates of practical relevance under ‘static’ conditions; using X-ray absorption, emission and photo-electron spectroscopies. Furthermore, we have probed the electronic and geometric structural changes upon photoexcitation of such complexes, and their evolution over time from femtoseconds to hundreds of picoseconds by means of time resolved photoelectron using the newly constructed high harmonic generation lab. Advance theoretical modeling allowed us to transfer the experimental data to structural information using ab initio calculation. Our achievements allow us to investigate currently new complexes that can be used for carbon dioxide reduction and renewable energy based on another EU project named DIACAT.