CHEM 418 Photochemistry and Photophysics

This is a course about what molecules do in the brief window after they absorb a photon, how excited states form, lose energy through radiative and radiationless pathways, transfer charge or excitation to neighbors, and occasionally drive chemistry that ground-state molecules can't. You'll work through Jablonski diagrams, selection rules, and quenching kinetics across organic chromophores and metal complexes like [Ru(bpy)3]2+, anchored by two midterms, a final, and five homeworks built on the Juris textbook. Sitting on top of physical chemistry and inorganic foundations, it's the bridge course for anyone heading toward solar energy conversion, photocatalysis, OLEDs, or the supramolecular machines that close the syllabus.