New Techniques for Photoactive Materials

Led by director Jeffrey Rack, PhD, the Laboratory for Magneto-optical Spectroscopy is one of a very few number of laboratories world-wide that can make broad-band steady state and time-resolved magneto-optical measurements.This technology promises to reveal electronic and magnetic details from a wide variety of commercially relevant photoactive materials.

By utilizing their expertise in spectroscopy with their chemical knowledge, the lab is uniquely positioned to not only make sophisticated measurements from the femtosecond to microsecond, but to also create tailored materials to optimize and exploit specific chemical interactions. Materials that show large magneto-optical responses are employed in high-technology optical switches and novel optical materials in a variety of applications. The lab’s instruments can even detect UV to the near infrared (N-IR).

In addition to the multitude of cross-disciplinary opportunities this work provides, undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students are being exposed to a groundbreaking learning experience. The new classes of photochromic materials with photorefractive properties that are being created in this lab are allowing them to not only help pioneer brand new ways of storing holographic data but to also become leaders within their field.