Analysis and Spectroscopy

The analysis and spectroscopy expertise within the Department of Chemistry is being leveraged to gain specialized insight into the nature of a host of chemical systems. Our faculty utilize NMR, optical microscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and biosensing to provide critical insight into the interactions of  molecules with each other and their surroundings. An important effort is to miniaturize bioanalytical platforms down to single cell, nanoscopic, or single molecule scales to improve the resolution and enable massively parallel analysis in a lab-on-a-chip format. New modes of scanning probe microscopy are being pursued to decipher chemical, electrical, and mechanical properties of macromolecules, photoactive materials, and nanostructures. Optical spectroscopies such as time-resolved emission and transient absorption spectroscopy yield critical insight about excited-state dynamics of chemical reactions and materials of interest to solar energy conversion.