The next NB-Photonics seminar will take place on 6^th March (in AUD iGent). Prof. Poul B. Petersen from Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. will give a talk on “Advances in Nonlinear Infrared Spectroscopy to Probe Interfaces"

Poul B. Petersen is a Professor in the Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in chemistry from Aarhus University, Denmark and obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of Richard J. Saykally. He did his postdoctoral research with Andrei Tokmakoff in collaboration with Daniel G. Nocera at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He started his independent career at Cornell University in upstate NY in 2009 before moving back to Europe in 2018 to be part of the excellence cluster in solvation science RESOLV.

Reservations free of cost but mandatory (in view of catering) via https://eventmanager.ugent.be/seminarpbpetersen by Wednesday 4th March.

For more details on the talk see the abstract below.

Program:

11.30  -  11:35   Introduction by Pieter Geiregat (AUD iGent, 1st floor)

11:35  -  12:20   Seminar by Poul B. Petersen 

12.20  -  12.30   Discussion

12.30  -  13.00   Sandwich Lunch (in Foyer 1.1 on first floor of iGent Tower)

Abstract

We are pushing the envelope of ultrafast and nonlinear mid-IR spectroscopic methods to probe new phenomena concerning the structure and dynamics at surface and in bulk systems and further applying these to a series of novel systems. Mid-infrared (IR) spectroscopy directly interrogates the chemical bonds molecules are composed of through their vibrational frequencies and thus offers a direct and local probe of molecular structure and nuclear motion. However, ultrafast IR spectroscopy is very challenging and thus heavily technology driven. Progress is driven by technical advances and the development of new laser sources and techniques that shed new light on existing problems, resolve controversies, and can lead to the discovery of new and unexpected phenomena. I’ll present an overview of our efforts including new methods for studying chiral water structures in biological settings, surface-bound catalysts, the ultrafast vibrational dynamics and proton transfer within strongly hydrogen-bonded systems, and charge dynamics in nanocrystalline materials.