POWRE: Studies of Molecular Motion in Reverse Micelles: A Sabbatical Leave Request

Colorado State University, Fort Collins CO

Investigators

Abstract

This POWRE award by the Chemistry Division will permit Dr. Nancy Levinger to extend her sabbatical leave from Colorado State University to a full year of work in the laboratory of M.D. Fayer at Stanford University, where she will learn the use of ultrafast lasers to obtain vibrational coherence spectra as well as brush up on the time dependent quantum mechanical theoretical description of the non-linear signals generated by such experiments. She will apply these vibrational echo techniques in her continuing study of intermolecular interactions in extrememly small, nanoscale, reverse micelles upon her return to Colorado State University. Vibrational echo spectroscopy has been shown to greatly sharpen spectra allowing more precise information about the chemical environment of the sample to be obtained. Reverse micelles are important systems with which to model biomembranes and nanoscale reactions.