Research from Professor Adam Kirrander, Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry at St Peter’s College, is featured on the cover of the April 2024 issue of the prestigious journal Nature Chemistry.
The article, ‘Ultrafast electronic relaxation pathways of the molecular photoswitch quadricyclane’, is a result of work carried out in an international collaboration that combined experiments at the FERMI free-electron laser in Trieste and state-of-the-art simulations in Oxford. The article reveals the mechanism for how a molecule changes its shape from one distinct form to another in response to light. New explanations of the processes behind such molecular photoswitches have many valuable applications, such as in the development of green energy devices that absorb solar energy and release it later as heat.
About Prof Kirrander
Prof Kirrander is Tutor in Chemistry at St. Peter's College and Professor of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Oxford. His interests span ultrafast processes, quantum dynamics, and photochemistry, focusing mainly on theory and computations. His work maintains strong connections to experiments, such as the collaboration that brought about this latest article. His research group at Oxford develops theoretical frameworks for new ultrafast imaging experiments. Learn more about Prof Kirrander here.