Group description

The Spectroscopy Group works in research lines that comprise different subjects, all focusing on a molecular and nanometric scale. It designs and applies state of the art spectroscopic techniques to a variety of problems in chemistry that partly overlap with the fields of biology or physics. The group works in spectroscopic instrumentation to achieve high resolutions, both in time and energy, and high control of physical and chemical properties at the nanoscale. Thus, ultrafast lasers allow detection of phenomena in the timescale of femtoseconds, whereas microwave spectrometers can resolve molecular energy levels that differ only a few kHz. On the other hand, combining nanosecond laser pulses with mass spectrometric detection it is possible to discriminate among different molecular conformers of the same species. Finally, and the most relevant for this call, laser lithography techniques, together with magneto-optical spectroscopy, allow fabrication and characterization of singular patterned nanostructures.

A brief list of the ongoing research lines of the group is given below:

•             The study of ultrafast molecular phenomena using femtosecond laser pulses, such as dissociative processes, energy transfer among excited electronic states, or between solute and solvent molecules, that are essential to understand intra- and intermolecular interactions.

•             Microwave spectroscopy techniques, combined with laser vaporization techniques, allow to obtain molecular structures and gas-phase dynamics of biomolecular building blocks, such as sugars. These studies are also the basis for the detection of prebiotic molecules in the interstellar space.

•             Laser electronic spectroscopy with pulsed supersonic jets and mass resolution is a powerful tool to characterize electronic transitions of rather big molecules and can further discriminate among a usually numerous family of conformers. This techniques are adequate to study interactions between molecular moieties of interest in the biosciences, such as anesthesic-receptor, or bonding among the nitrogenated bases in DNA and RNA chains.

•             More specific mass spectrometric techniques, such as Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization (MALDI), allow the obtention of bidimensional images of biological tissues; that allow quick monitoring of the distributions of lipids or other substances. This technique has immediate medical applications.

•             Nanofabrication and characterization of structures at the nanometer scale allow designing of magnetic nanostructures (discs, rods and other geometries) with distinctive properties, different from those of macroscopic elements. These patterned structures have a wide application in fields such as magnetic storage of information or biomedicine, for example, cancer diagnostics.