The Fast and the Curious: Unravelling light-triggered chemical processes

Humans mark the passing of time in minutes, hours, or years, but for electrons in molecules and materials, things happen in femtoseconds. Within millionths of a billionth of a second, light is converted into electricity in solar cells, chemical bonds are made and broken, or the brown skin pigment eumelanin dissipates UV light energy to protect us from damage from the Sun.

MacDiarmid Institute Co-Director and VUW Professor Justin Hodgkiss describes how he and his team have created instruments to illuminate and explore the femtosecond world, and explain how these insights are helping develop printable solar cells and enrich our understanding of light-driven processes in nature.

June 18, 2019