Human skin oils are significant scavengers of atmospheric oxidants in occupied indoor environments. Many techniques used to study gas-phase transformations of surface films indoors have been limited to off-line bulk analysis, although more surface-selective methodologies are emerging. Here, we present a multi-prong analytical approach to characterizing skin oil ozonolysis. Skin...
The unique ability of plasmonic nanoparticles to localize and enhance resonant electromagnetic fields has enabled a wealth of discoveries from enhanced spectroscopies to driving chemical reactions on the nanoscale. In this thesis, we strive to both drive and observe chemistry on plasmonic surfaces. First, we examine the possibility of driving...
The three dimensional structure of a protein determines its biological function. How a protein folds, however, has been the central research problem for decades. The intermediates on the folding paths, which the protein can assume transiently, are of particular interest as they not only reveal the structural dynamics of a...
Biogenic secondary organic aerosol (SOA) particles, produced by forest ecosystems across the globe, are principal, yet poorly understood constituents in the climate system. These atmospheric particles form when biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) react with atmospheric oxidants, leading to increasingly lower volatility oxidation products that partition into the condensed phase...
This thesis document is comprised of three research projects. The first investigates the active vibrational modes involved in twisted intramolecular charge transfer in a Julolidine-BODIPY dyad using two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy along with DFT calculations. We identified two types of vibrations, compression and torsional motion, as playing an important role in...
In solar energy conversion ranging from artificial photosynthesis to photocatalysis, transition metal complexes (TMC) are essential building blocks due to several attractive properties: intense absorption within the solar spectrum, presence of charge-transfer excited state, and substrate binding capability through coordination geometry changes. In order to gain insight into controlling solar...
Organic semiconductors have shown great promise for optoelectronic applications, particularly solar photovoltaics. Critical to their success is the ability to understand and manipulate the relationship between molecular structure and bulk properties. Substantial progress on understanding structural influences on electronic properties has been made for the conjugated polymers and small molecules...
Electrochemical reactions on the nanoscale play a pivotal role in a variety of areas, including electrocatalysis, energy conversion and storage, corrosion prevention, plasmon driven chemistry, and so forth. An in-depth knowledge of how site-specific compositions and morphologies locally affect the electron transfer kinetics will greatly benefit the design of catalysts,...
This dissertation explores ways to utilize physical parameters at the nanoscale interface to control the properties of mixed-dimensional heterojunctions (MDHJs). MDHJs combine the desirable properties of different classes of low-dimensional nanomaterials (materials that are quantum confined in at least one dimension). While MDHJs have achieved superlative performance for a variety...
Many processes in nature and human-made settings rely on the unique properties of charged metal oxide:aqueous interfaces. Despite their ubiquity, these buried interfaces are challenging to study, since any analytical technique aiming to overcome the relatively small number density of interfacial versus bulk species must be highly sensitive and surface-selective....