Designing next-generation photocatalysts to bridge fundamental spectroscopy and applied energy solutions.

     Transition metals are essential tools in solving the world’s energy challenges. As stimuli-responsive catalysts, these complexes overcome thermodynamically challenging energy barriers with light or electrochemical potential and unlock products that were once deemed inaccessible. Molecular spectroscopy provides a powerful lens to uncover the electronic landscape of these systems, shedding light on metal-ligand interactions with atomic-scale resolution. Leveraging spectroscopic techniques that span five orders of magnitude of photon energy – from near-infrared to the x-ray regime – we can probe vibrational, electronic, and core-valence transitions in these systems with high precision. Time-resolved methods take this further, capturing fast-paced intramolecular and intermolecular dynamics, and charting new frontiers in our understanding and control of molecular reactivity.