Laboratory for femtochemistry

In our research, we focus on study of ultrafast dynamics of photo-induced chemical processes, such as photo-dissociation, photo-ionization and energy transfer. Radiation from the pump laser beam excites a molecular state and after a very short time, molecular state relaxes to a lower one, which may be different from the initial ground state. Therefore, we can trigger production of new molecules, by the temporal shape, energy, and spectrum of the ultrashort pulses. Transfer through the intermediate state can be temporally tracked by the use of fs transient absorption spectroscopy, revealing dynamics as slow as few ns and as fast as few tens of fs.

Here we investigate the photophysical and photochemical reactions of molecules to be used for the synthesis of complex molecules with biological activity, such as antiviral and anticancer agents. Also, we explore photophysics of new materials for the next generation solar cells, such as light-harvesting molecules (complex organic dyes).

We plan to investigate optical characteristics of biosensors (nanoparticles in biological environment), as well. Optical biosensors are powerful alternative to conventional analytical techniques. In particular, high specificity, sensitivity, small size, and cost effectiveness of biosensors, enables direct, real-time and label-free detection of many chemical and biological substances.