Seminar Steve Meech 'Ultrafast Dynamics in Porphyrin Nanorings'

The photochemistry of porphyrins has long been a topic of interest in areas ranging from the

dyestuff industry through solar cell development to photodynamic therapy. Some years ago the

Anderson group synthesised porphyrin rings comprising 6 to 40 monomer units. These rings

excited the interest of the spectroscopy and photosynthesis communities as they offer a

synthetic mimic of the light harvesting complex, in which effects such as exciton coupling and

energy transport can be investigated as a function of ring size and order. This talk on the

ultrafast photodynamics of these porphyrin nanorings will begin with a two-dimensional

electronic spectroscopy study of the foundational monomer and dimer units. After that, transient

absorption spectroscopy will be applied to investigate the spectroscopy and photophysics of

nanorings as a function of structural disorder. Finally, intensity dependent dynamics will be

monitored to probe exciton-exciton annihilation.