Professor Robert Pecora is supported by a grant from the Theoretical and Computational Chemistry Program to perform theoretical and experimental research on thermal motions in liquid and polymer systems. Professor Pecora will emply a number of experimental methods including interferometry, photon correlation spectroscopy, forced Rayleigh scattering and transient electric birefringence to study dilute and non-dilute solutions of rigid and semi-rigid rod-like molecules. He will also study composite solutions consisting of various combinations of rods, spheres, and coils. Some of the rod-like molecules he will study are DNA restriction fragments. The theoretical effort will involve both formal theoretical modeling and Brownian dynamics computer simulations. %%% Composite liquids are a ubiquitous class of materials which contain polymer, particles and solvent. They are used as ceramic precursors, lubricants, paints and coatings, adhesives, and in chromatographic columns. Due to their complexity and the lack of adequate model systems, the interactions between the species in such systems are not well understood. Pecora has constructed a model rod/sphere composite liquid whose dynamics can be studied over a wide range of composition of both the rods and the spheres using an experimental technique known as dynamic light scattering.
