Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Chemical and physical processes initiated by light are central to life on earth. Early scientific studies of natural light-driven processes such as photosynthesis and vision led curious minds inevitably to ask the most fundamental questions about these phenomena. "What is the nature of light?" "How does light interact with material substances and with what consequence?" The answers have provided the basis for new technologies, improvements in health, and wealth creation beyond the first questioners' wildest imaginations: xerography, fibre optic communications, optical data storage, artificial methods for the capture and storage of solar energy, photochemical methods of wastewater treatment, photodynamic therapy for some types of cancer and for macular degeneration. Whole industries are presently based on the generation of laser light and its use in photonics devices, micromachining and a host of other applications. More is on the horizon; light-driven molecular logic devices, optical quantum computing, coherent control of photochemical and photophysical processes, and numerous other applications are under active investigation. In our research group we continue to address fundamental questions about the chemical and physical effects of the absorption of light by matter, and the information we obtain continues to find application in these and other important areas.Our specific aims are to examine the structure and dynamic behaviour of molecules in highly excited electronic states. Fundamental research that we did 15 years ago now finds application in designing and fabricating light-harvesting polymers. Work that we have done more recently shows how molecules of interest to us could be incorporated as switches and logic gates into light-driven molecular electronics devices. The young scientists that have been trained in our laboratories may now be found in research and development, technical, teaching and administrative positions in universities, government laboratories and industries around the world.