[MOS] March 8, 2016, David J. Nesbitt, JILA

[Rebecca Teixeira]

Seminar on




Modern Optics and Spectroscopy

A physical chemist in search of simplicity: From spectroscopy of molecular transients to probing gas-liquid interfaces


David J. Nesbitt


JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and University of Colorado, Boulder, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA

Tuesday, March 8, 2016
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.



Chemists have been amazingly successful with the manipulation of complicated molecular systems, whereas to a physicist, even simple molecules can seem overwhelmingly complex. Physical chemists are blessed (or cursed) with a dual scientific personality. We are attracted to real world chemical systems and yet are often not satisfied posing questions without the requisite rigor to hope for pleasingly fundamental answers. This talk will provide an overview of work in my labs that attempts to address complex molecular systems but with a physical chemist’s eye toward finding the underlying simplicity. This talk will focus on recent results from our labs sampling the following two areas: 1) High resolution IR spectroscopy of supersonic cooled combustion radicals, for which slit jet discharge supersonic expansions provide the near ideal venue for preparing “hot” transient species and probing them under collision free, sub-Doppler conditions at temperatures of the interstellar medium, 2) Quantum-state resolved inelastic and reactive scattering dynamics at the gas-liquid and gas-self assembled monolayer (SAM) interface, based on exploiting supersonic beams “bouncing” cold molecules as projectiles from the top monolayer of a liquid (or liquid-mimetic) under high vacuum conditions. In each of these topics, the focus will be on simple physical pictures that help explain and interpret the underlying chemical physics.


Grier Room, MIT Bldg. 34-401
Refreshments served after the lecture
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