Prof. B. Dietzek – Ivansic, Inst. for Phys. Chemistry, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany), Jena Center for Soft Matters

Abstract. Light is ubiquitous and light-driven processes are key, e.g., to the perception of the environment by vision, photosynthesis, to develop specific therapeutic approaches for cancer or to address the global challenge to transform our economy towards renewable energies. Consequently, research on light-activated molecules and materials, i.e., synthesis as well as functional and mechanistic studies on such systems are intensively researched. This talk will focus on two rather unexplored aspects to study light-driven molecular reactivity focusing on the excited-state dynamics in molecular intermediates in complex electron transfer cascades and photo-activated drugs for cancer therapy. I will discuss our experimental approaches, e.g., combining electrochemistry with ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopy, to investigate the light driven molecular reactivity from new viewpoints and highlight implications for photocatalysis and photodrug design obtained from the spectroscopic-mechanistic studies.