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Photophysics and photochemistry: focus on practical applications

Instructor: Cornelia Bohne

Content: The course will cover basic concepts in photophysics and photochemitry with the aim to provide users of photophysical equipment the required background to interpret data. Focus will be on applications of absorption, steady-state fluorescence, singlet photon counting and laser flash photolysis.

Outline:
Lecture 1: Paradigm of organic photochemical reactions, state energy diagrams, multiplicity, excited states configurations, Born-Oppenheimer approximation.
Lecture 2: Singlet states, triplet states, spin orbit coupling, radiative transitions, non-radiative transition, quantum yield, lifetimes.
Lecture 3: Principles of absorption and fluorescence measurements, kinetic aspects: quenching reactions, bimolecular reactions involving transients.
Lecture 4: Principles of single photon counting and laser flash photolysis, identification of transient species, competitive reactions.
Lecture 5: Anisotropy studies.
Lecture 6: Discussion of recent literature examples of the application of photophysics and/or photochemistry. Students will chose from a list of topics.

Delivery: Six 1.5 hour lectures and two 1.5 hour discussion on assignment material. The course will be offered over a 3 to 6 week period between February and April 2014 depending on the time availability of students, i.e. conflicts with other modules etc.

Assessment: Written critical analysis of one or two papers from the literature where photophysics is central to an application, e.g. materials characterization, sensing, small molecular binding to supramolecular hosts or biomolecules.

This module will only be offered if three or more students sign up.