Isomer-specific spectroscopy of aromatics and their resonance-stabilized radical intermediates
There are many circumstances in which complex gas-phase reaction mixtures must be interrogated and understood, including combustion, plasmas, atmospheres, and molecular clouds. Spectroscopic tools are essential to selective detection and characterization of the widening array of precursors and the reactive intermediates they generate. This research program has focused on the development and implementation of sensitive spectroscopic detection schemes that are isomer-specific and even conformation-specific. In particular, we used an array of laser-based and broadband microwave methods to carry out isomer-specific and conformation-specific spectroscopy on large flexible molecules and reactive intermediates formed by photolysis, pyrolysis, combustion, or electron-driven chemistry.