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Transient Absorption Spectroscopy

Our open access facility offers a versatile sample range, with options for operando and spatially resolved measurements.

Newly installed in 2022, the North-East Transient Absorption Spectroscopy (TAS) Facility is a unique UK facility for TAS measurements, it being open access, and in terms of the versatility of samples that can be handled and the options for performing operando and spatially resolved measurements.

Alongside steady state optical measurements, time resolved fluorescence and vibrational spectroscopy, TAS allows the full characterisation of optically active systems. Your sample is excited with a laser pump beam of 100 fs and changes in absorbance monitored in terms of wavelength and time the full range of visible light to near IR with resolution down to 14 fs and 4 nm.

TAS allows us to probe short-lived excited state species that can represent only a small fraction of the species created upon sample photo excitation but can have a significant impact on the fate of the sample. Such species include:

  • Triplets
  • Photo-radicals
  • Photoisomers
  • Charge-transfer states

Due to the flexibility of the sample chamber and signal chopping, the facility is particularly well suited to the study of developed devices (e.g., Photovoltaic devices), thin-films, powders etc. as well as more traditional cuvette-based solution samples. The system also has a confocal microscope attachment allowing the sample to be spatially resolved.

Our services

The North-East TAS facility is running a combined Helios-Eos Fire Spectrometer UltraFast Systems with a Solstice Ti:Sapphire laser from Spectra-Physics. See the links below for further details or get in touch with us to see if the specifications match your requirements.

Applications

TAS can be used to gain valuable information on all photoactive molecules and systems. Some research applications include:

  • Charge carrier dynamics in photovoltaic devices
  • Photosynthesis research
  • Photodynamic therapy
  • Light-harvesting molecules

Our staff

  • Dr Owen Woodford, Technical Scientific Officer
  • Professor Elizabeth Gibson, Professor of Energy Materials

Contact us

To request a quote, or ask us a question, you can complete our analytical services general enquiry form below.

If you’re a Newcastle University staff member or student, you can visit the internal Research and Analytical Services' intranet page.