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Niels H. Damrauer Office Phone: 303 735 1280
E-mail: Niels.Damrauer@colorado.edu
FAX: 303 492 5894
Lab: Cristol Chemistry 128
Lab Phone: 303
Group Website: Damrauer Lab
Ph.D.: University of California, Berkeley, 2000
Postdoctoral Fellow: Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Würzburg, 2000-2001
NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2002-2003
Photochemical Control of Electron-Transfer and Multielectron Chemistry using Shaped Light Fields and Molecular Structure
Research in my group involves a multifaceted approach that combines state of the art physical techniques, synthetic methodologies, and theoretical tools. The chemical questions we ask and answer lie primarily under the umbrella of physical inorganic chemistry with an emphasis on electron-transfer control, solar energy conversion, bioenergetic conversion, photocatalysis, and multielectron chemistry.
One important physical tool that is used – adaptive femtosecond pulse shaping – is a powerful recent development in laser spectroscopy. Its importance stems from the use of an adaptive learning procedure which permits the control and study of complex systems. The starting point of our adaptive control research addresses whether shaped coherent light fields can change active mechanisms of electron transfer in model and biological systems, thus, controlling electron transfer rates, direction, and multi-electron transformations.
The synthetic infrastructure built in our laboratories allows us to ask additional questions of photochemical reaction control that do not rely on the adaptive techniques. One such problem focuses on how excited-state motion in coordination complexes can be utilized to modulate – in a time-dependent fashion – the degree of coupling between an electron donor and an acceptor.
Selected Publications
Meylemans, H. A.; Lei, C.F..; Damrauer, N. H. Ligand Structure, Conformational Dynamics, and Excited-State Electron Delocalization for Control of Photoinduced Electron Transfer Rates in Synthetic Donor–Bridge–Acceptor Systems Inorganic Chemistry 47, 4060-4076 (2008).
Grumstrup, E. M. ; Shim, S. H.; Montgomery, M. A.; Zanni, M. T.; Damrauer, N. H. Facile Collection of Two-Dimensional Electronic Spectra with Pulse Shaping Technology. Optics Express 15, 16681-16689 (2007).
Montgomery, M. A.; Meglen, R. R.; Damrauer, N. H. General Method for Reducing Adaptive Laser Pulse Shaping Experiments to a Single Control Variable. J. Phys. Chem. A 111, 5126-5129 (2007).
Montgomery, M. A.; Damrauer, N. H. Elucidation of Control Mechanisms Discovered During Adaptive Manipulation of [Ru(dpb)3](PF6)2 Emission in the Solution Phase. Journal of Physical Chemistry A. 111, 1426-1433 (2007).
Montgomery, M. A.; Meglen, R. R.; Damrauer, N.H. A General Method for the Dimension Reduction of Adaptive Control Experiments. Journal of Physical Chemistry A. 110, 6391-6394 (2006).
Damrauer, N.H.; Hodgkiss, J.; Rosenthal, J.; Nocera, D. G. Observation of Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer by Transient Absorption Spectroscopy in a Hydrogen-Bonded, Porphyrin Donor-Acceptor Assembly. Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 108, 6315-6321 (2004).
Brixner, T.; Damrauer, N.H.†; Kiefer, B.; Gerber, G. Liquid-Phase Adaptive Femtosecond Quantum Control: Removing Intrinsic Intensity Dependencies. Journal of Chemical Physics. 118, 3692-3701 (2003). †lead author contribution.
Brixner, T.; Damrauer, N.H.†; Niklaus, P; Gerber, G. Photoselective Adaptive Femtosecond Quantum Control in the Liquid Phase. Nature 414, 57-60 (2001). †lead author contribution.
Damrauer, N.H; McCusker, J.K. Ultrafast Dynamics in the Metal-to-Ligand Charge Transfer Excited-State Evolution of [Ru(4,4’-diphenyl-2,2’-bipyridine)3]2+. Journal of Physical Chemistry A 103, 8440-8446 (1999).
Damrauer, N.H.; Boussie, T.R.; Devenney, M.; McCusker, J.K. Effects of Intraligand Electron Delocalization, Steric Tuning, and Excited-State Vibronic Coupling on the Photophysics of Aryl-Substituted Bipyridyl Complexes of Ruthenium (II). Journal of the American Chemical Society 119, 8253-8268 (1997).
Damrauer, N.H.; Cerullo, G.; Yeh, A.; Boussie, T.R.; Shank, C.V.; McCusker, J.K. Femtosecond Dynamics of Excited-State Evolution in [Ru(bpy)3]2+. Science 275, 54-57 (1997).
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