Research

Overview

This page will give you a general overview of the major research focus of the Miller group as well as some insight into the different research projects that may be of interest. The overall research direction is aimed at resolving the structure-function relationship of biological systems. [more...]

Coherent Control of Complex Systems

Do we live in a Quantum World? Quantum mechanics dictates that all matter has an inherent wave property. On a molecular scale, this property can lead to destructive and constructive interferences that have a pronounced effect on transmission probabilities along reaction coordinates, for example the photo-induced isomerization of the retinal molecule in rhodopsins. Our goal in this lab is to explore whether quantum coherences exist in Nature. We are currently investigating several objects, including dyes in solvents (artificial systems) and bacteriorhodopsin (a natural system) to answer this question. [more...]

Femtosecond Electron Diffraction

“Making the Molecular Movie”: Femtosecond Electron Diffraction (FED) harbours great potential for providing atomic resolution of structural changes as they occur, essentially watching atoms move in real time. It combines temporal resolution on the hundreds of femtoseconds (fs) scale – a time scale typically only accessible by time-resolved optical spectroscopy – with real-space structural information on the atomic scale. [more...]

Multidimensional Coherent Spectroscopy of Liquids and Biological/Molecular Systems

The long term objective of this program is to experimentally determine the many body potential of liquid H2O – the “liquor of life”. To this end, two new spectroscopic methods have been developed. [more...]

Solid State Laser Development

The experimental studies of the ultrafast phenomena performed in the research group require table top laser systems that are at the frontier of today’s laser technology. We try to push limits in terms of ultrashort pulse’s peak power, duration and tunability with simultaneous control of its optical phase and amplitude. Since the lasers are used in actual experiments to induce nonlinear effects and probe fine features of the quantum dynamics a special care is taken to ensure their short and long term stability to increase signal to noise ratio and avoid measuring artifacts. [more...]