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Washington University in St. Louis News & Information > Faculty Experts at Washington University in St. Louis >
Assistant Professor of Physical Chemistry
Expertise: reaction dynamics, atomic resolution, quantum computing, radical molecule clusters, linear laser spectroscopy, nonlinear laser spectroscopy, quantum wave packet dynamics, intramolecular energy redistribution, intermolecular energy redistribution, Bio:
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Additional Background: As a physical chemist, Loomis' research interests are centered on probing and controlling reaction dynamics at the most fundamental level, that is, with atomic resolution. Loomis recalls that these interests first developed in his first high school chemistry class. While he could comprehend that two chemicals, when mixed together in a beaker, would react forming different products when the appropriate temperature conditions were achieved, he still questioned exactly how the reaction between the molecules within the chemicals occurred. While his teachers and later his professors could make solid conjectures at the mechanisms of these reactions, the precise details (for example, the exact geometries between the reactant molecules as they approached one another, the motions induced throughout the reaction event, and the timescales for each step of the reaction) still remained unknown to him and everyone. What Loomis wanted was to examine closely a molecule and videotape that molecule as it approached a reaction partner, then observe the two reactants combine as an intermediate, and witness the intermediate evolve into product molecules. While that is clearly not feasible, Loomis' research group is now approaching this overly simplistic concept. The experiments in the Loomis laboratory uniquely blend a combination of established molecular beam techniques that allow them to cool reactants to the lowest possible temperatures about -272 degrees Celsius, with sophisticated laser technology which in turn enables them to initiate the reactions with specific energies and preferred orientations at well-defined times. By using multiple lasers, they can not only precisely start the reactions but also monitor the decay of the reactants or the formation of the products using a second laser set to appropriate spectroscopic transitions. At a given delay in time between the first and second laser, a snapshot of the populations of the reactants and products, as well as the relative orientations between the atoms involved in the reaction, can be recorded at that instant along the reaction pathway. By recording numerous snapshots at incrementally increasing delay times between the lasers, a movie of the reaction of interest is generated at the atomic level with sufficient time resolution, less than 10 to13 seconds, to see geometries changing, bonds breaking, and new bonds forming. Loomis and his group are leading the field of chemical reaction dynamics to new directions. Another exciting field on which this research should make a significant impact is quantum computing — which employs elementary particles such as protons, neutrons and electrons and operates according to the rules of quantum mechanics. the encoded information from the system at a desired time. |
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 Tony Fitzpatrick Senior Science Editor tony_fitzpatrick@wustl.edu (314) 935-5272
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Revised: Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006 
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