The Department of Physics colloquia includes internationally prominent guest speakers. They take place on Fridays during the semester and are open to anyone from the university, with students encouraged to attend.
Prof Philip Moriarty
Prof Philip Moriarty, University of Nottingham
How quickly does an encaged electron tunnel free?
Abstract: Remarkable advances in synthetic chemistry mean that fullerenes can now be partially ‘unzipped’, an atom or molecule placed inside, and the carbon framework subsequently zipped up again to restore the original cage architecture [1]. The resulting endofullerene represents both an exotic state of matter (essentially a gas phase-solid state hybrid) and a unique platform for the controlled study of intra- and intermolecular charge transfer. I will discuss unpublished results from our recent beamtime experiments at the Diamond Light Source (Beamline I09) in which we have used the core-hole clock technique[2], coupled with normal incidence X-ray standing wave (NIXSW) analysis [3], to time how long it takes for an electron excited to the 4s state of an argon atom in Ar@C60 to tunnel free. Time permitting, application of the core-hole clock technique to an encapsulated molecule – namely, nitrogen in N2@C60 – will also be covered, highlighting the key role of vibrational excitation.