School Colloquium

Dr Patrick Robertson, School of Chemistry, University of Nottingham

Title: How to watch chemistry happen in rel time.

Abstract

Visualising the motion of atoms and molecules during a chemical reaction is a grand challenge in physical chemistry
and chemical physics. The so-called ‘molecular movie’ would reveal the short-lived intermediates that fundamentally
determine chemical outcomes, giving direct insight into the forces that connect reactants to products.

Watching chemistry happen requires experimental techniques that are sensitive to electronic and nuclear motion on
their native timescales of attoseconds-to-picoseconds. In this Colloquium, I will discuss some of the tools at our
disposal for studying the dynamics of photon- and electron-initiated chemistry in the gas-phase, and how we can
visualise the spatial distribution of products in the laboratory to follow a reaction in real time.