Valeria D. Kleiman
Assistant Professor of Chemistry

Department of Chemistry
University of Florida

VOICE: (352) 392-4656

EMAIL: kleiman@chem.ufl.edu

HOMEPAGE: http://www.chem.ufl.edu/~kleiman/

Research Interests

Ultrafast Spectroscopy
The processes of interest occur very fast (10-15-10-10sec). These events are triggered by the absorption of energy from a laser pulse. After excitation, the systems can undergo several changes, involving redistribution of the energy, lose of coherence, formation of intermediates, etc. The evolution of those changes provides useful information to understand the light-matter interactions. Since the temporal evolutions are extremely fast, it is necessary to probe the system in time-scales faster that the times it takes them to evolve.

In general, ultrafast spectroscopy techniques involve an initial step (excitation by a short laser pulse) followed by the probing of the evolution of an optical transition (through absorption, scattering or photoluminescence) . To probe the evolution of a fast process we utilize techniques equivalent to the stroboscopic method develop by Harold "Doc" Edgerton.

Conjugated polymers
New materials with novel photophysical properties are crucial for developing revolutionary molecular-photonic and -electronic components. Over the past two decades, conjugated polymers have emerged as materials exhibiting valuable properties in optical sensing, energy transport, and light harvesting. Understanding the optical properties of these materials depends primarily on the investigation of energy and charge transfer mechanisms. Our research is focused on the study of poly-conjugated molecules and their photo-physical properties. The goal is to understand novel properties arising not from the accumulation of single units, but those that derive from the macromolecule as a whole. Central to the project is the use of ultrafast spectroscopy to study energy transport in conjugated polymers whose electronic and optical properties can be chemically controlled at the molecular level.

We concentrate our efforts in the areas of energy transfer and storage, and the search for non-linear properties that can yield new materials for IR sensors, artificial antennae, and energy conversion. This objective will be achieved by research of energy-transport and intra- and inter-chain exciton migration mechanisms in linear (ionic polymers) and dendrimer-like molecules.