This award supports Professor James P. Riehl of the University of Missouri at St. Louis for collaborative research with Professor Harry P. J. M. Dekkers of the Department of Chemistry, State University of Leiden, The Netherlands. They are pursuing several related projects on chiral and racemic mixtures through the use of a new time-resolved circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) apparatus. Professor Dekkers has built such an apparatus in Leiden, and offers experimental experience in measurements of luminescence in chiral organic systems, while Professor Riehl has expertise in theoretical analysis and some experimental work on the stereochemistry of aqueous lanthanide complexes. The interests and skills of the two investigators mesh very well. This project focuses on an emerging area of spectroscopy that may have a significant impact on a number of significant problems, both fundamental and applied. The proposed collaboration should further develop the experimental and theoretical underpinnings of time resolved CPL experiments. A better understanding of molecular energy exchange and conformational dynamics in chiral lanthanides should also result.
