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Tracking Condensed Phase Dynamics Via Two-Dimensional Optical Spectroscopy: From Dynamic Equilibrium to Photoinitiated Processes

Understanding condensed phase processes is a prevailing topic throughout the scientific community and is essential for describing and predicting condensed phase dynamics. In this talk I will discuss two different research topics that investigate condensed phase dynamics. The first topic focuses on understanding ultrafast photoinitiated processes that are relevant to light harvesting. Here we use two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES) to gain remarkable insight into the relaxation of excitonic states of photosystem I, a natural light harvesting complex that catalyzes oxygenic photosynthesis, and a model dimer system. The second topic explores dynamic equilibrium in a fluxional metal-carbonyl complex. Here two-dimensional infrared (2DIR) spectroscopy is used to track isomerization reactions on a ground electronic state and probe the dynamic role of the solvent in barrier crossing processes. In conclusion, I will discuss our current research utilizing electronic and vibrational multidimensional spectroscopic techniques to explore energy and electron transfer in model light harvesting systems.