This proposal from the University of Rochester, in association with the Eastman Kodak Company and the Xerox Corporation requests funds to establish a Science and Technology Center for Photoinduced Charge Transfer. The Director of the Center will be Professor David G. Whitten. The goal of the research is to achieve a molecular level understanding of the four major events of photoinduced charge transfer processes (i.e., activation processes; initial charge transfer; charge separation, transport and trapping; chemical reactions of charged species). Thus, the research will focus on the fundamentals of electron transfer processes themselves. The Center will involve studies of photoexcitation and field-assisted charge separation and transport in diverse media (including solids, organized, and amorphous media), in semiconductor particles, across interfaces, and in fluid media. These studies will naturally lead into the spectrum of photobiological processes, where electron transfer plays a key role. Parallel efforts will be directed towards applications of electron transfer processes. One example of this type of study will be the exploration of chemical bond activation by single electron transfer. The breadth of the research expertise at the three sites is most appropriate for the proposed research activities, ranging from solid state physics, materials science, to electrochemistry and preparative chemistry, new laser technology, and colloid and surface science.
