Molecular discovery for the future of energy and quantum technologies.
Escalating global energy demands represent one of the key challenges of the 21st century. Despite massive technological advancements across computing, transportation, and medicine, our energy infrastructure is tethered to fossil fuels as an energy source and chemical feedstock. We require inexpensive, efficient, and resilient systems to harvest and store this energy. Photon energy is one promising solution. It takes less than 1 hour for the sun to deliver enough energy to the Earth's surface to meet global energy demands for an entire year. Despite this, existing strategies in global energy harvesting fall short due to solar intermittency, low light-harvesting efficiency, and poor photon-to-fuel conversion. Single molecules are the smallest well-defined systems to bridge this research gap for a sustainable society.
Our approach is at the interface of molecular engineering and chemical physics, allowing us to design and study photoactive molecules from fundamentals to applications. Molecular design offers direct control over the structure-function properties that govern light-matter interactions. With advanced spectroscopic methods, including time-resolved UV-visible, infrared, and X-ray spectroscopies, we can track the movement of charge through molecules towards to generate feedstocks, pharmaceuticals, and spin-polarized states. Students will gain experience in chromophore synthesis, methods development, mechanistic analysis, and theoretical modeling. We will map and manipulate the excited-state manifold to achieve new photocatalysis and quantum sensors towards novel reactivity and sensitivity profiles.
Representative Publications.
Photocatalysis with Earth-Abundant Metal Complexes
Using long-lived charge transfer states for difficult electron transfer reactions.
Barth, A. T. et al. Inorg. Chem. 2026, 65, 20858–20871.
Wheeler, J. P.; Barth, A. T. et. al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2026, 148, 33818−33831.
Barth, A. T. et al. Acc. Chem. Res. 2023, 56, 1978–1989.
Barth, A. T. et al. Inorg. Chem. 2022, 61, 7251–7255.
Fajardo, J., Jr. ; Barth, A. T. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2021, 143, 19389–19398.
Mechanistic Studies of Light-Induced Bond Activation
Evaluating how bonds break in molecules via ligand-to-metal charge transfer.
Barth, A. T. et al. J. Phys. Chem. A 2024, 128, 7609–7619.
Arteta, S.; Deegbey, M; Durand, N.; Kibbe, R; Floß, J.; Barth, A. T. et al. ACS Catalysis, 2025, 15, 17, 15657–15669.
Tan, H.; Cilliberto, P. M.; Barth, A.; Magill, B.; A. R. Rauch; Castellano, F. N.; Alvarez, E. M.* J. Am. Chem. Soc (In Review)
Mapping the Excited State Landscape in 3d Metals
Using electronic structure calculations to predict excited-state trajectories..
Sridhar, S.; Khansari, S.; O’Donnell, S.; Barth, A. T.; et al. J. Chem. Phys. 2024, 161, 114706.
Higdon, N. J.; Barth, A. T., et. al. J Phys Chem. 2020, 152, 204306.
Ngo, D. X.; Del Ciello, S. A.; Barth, A. T.; et al. Inorg. Chem. 2020, 59, 9594–9604.