Molecular Vibrations: A Structural Tool

Junrong Zheng

Department of Chemistry, Rice University

Elucidating transient molecular structural transformation steps from the reactant to product state during chemical reactions has been a grand challenge for physical chemists, biophysicists, and materials scientists. The main hurdle lies in the spatial and/or time resolution to spectroscopically characterize reaction pathways because the intrinsic atomic motions occur on ultrafast (i.e., femtosecond to picosecond) timescales.