Dr. Eric Chronister is supported by a grant from the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program to study fast dynamical processes which occur in molecular solids at extreme pressures. These experiments will provide important information on how chemical reactions are influenced by conditions of extreme pressure at very low temperatures. In this project Chronister will utilize high pressure and time-resolved coherent spectroscopies to study details of solid state intermolecular interactions which cannot be obtained by other means. Although temperature provides the energy for a system to move on a potential energy surface, the effect of increased density is very different since it influences the shape of the potential energy surface. Chronister's research will be useful in developing dynamic theories of optical dephasing, vibronic relaxation and inhomogeneous coherence loss, all of which are controlled by the shape of the intermolecular potential energy function. Since no high pressure studies of relaxation dynamics of molecular solids at low temperature have yet been done, Chronister will begin with detailed studies of pure and mixed crystal systems as well as some novel molecular solids.
