I haven’t posted for about 5 years. I’ve been …. busy with stuff.
We had a great summer 2022! Aobo successfully defended his thesis on the surface chemistry of gold nanorods (manuscript in preparation). Mathieu has a paper in press at Astrobiology about the Raman spectra of three anthraquinones: chrysophanol, emodin, and parietin. This is our first publication (hopefully of many) where we use DFT calculations to identify Raman peaks that can detect molecular signals in natural samples like rocks, organisms, or blood. This first paper includes spectra of yellow lichens I acquired around Cape Cod.
Undergraduates Campbell and Charles conducted similar experiments on flavonoids (flavone and quercetin). Their results show that DFT calculations reveal how hydrogen bonding affects certain vibrational modes of these molecules. Their natural sample was the dreaded yellow pollen that coats Houston in the Spring! That manuscript is very close to submission.
Here’s to a great fall semester, and hopefully I will post again here before 2027.