Abstract:
Elucidating the design principles of photosynthetic systems remains an outstanding challenge that has the potential to impact our design of artificial light-harvesting materials. I will discuss our development of a multispectral multidimensional spectrometer (MMDS) enabling measurements spanning the ultraviolet, visible and mid-infrared as well as combination spectroscopies, over timescales of femtoseconds to seconds. I will illustrate the capabilities of the MMDS instrument through our efforts to probe the electronic structure and charge separation mechanisms of natural photosynthetic reaction centers and organic photovoltaic materials.