image: MIT Optics and Quantum
Electronics Group
While scientists have unraveled many of the mysteries of atoms and
molecules, there remain significant unanswered questions. One relatively
recent way to study the behaviour of molecules is by means of femtosecond
laser pulses, i.e. ultrashort pulses of light lasting some thousandths of
millionths of millionths of seconds. In this seminar I will discuss how my
colleagues and I at UConn employ femtosecond lasers in time-of-flight
spectroscopy and vacuum-ultraviolet fluorescence spectroscopy to probe the
dynamics of some interesting diatomic molecules and what our studies have
revealed.