I’ve been curious how many working researchers we’ve got in this community, and what you all do!
If you’re working in science (physical or social), engineering, etc in a research capacity, give a shout in the comments and let us know what you work on! Same goes for students and amateur scientists at any level. (And by amateur I mean those of you who are working on your own experiments but just not being paid for it / not working on a degree; I’m upset that “amateur” has a negative connotation, it shouldn’t.)
I’m currently a PhD candidate, working on transmission electron microscopy and electronic materials (mainly ferroelectrics). In the past I’ve been involved in research / product development in a few different industries, including medical devices, aerogels, and materials for RF devices.
Well that’s fascinating! The technique sounds a little bit like a cross between Raman and EXAFS/XANES? (Probably just because those are two techniques I happen to be familiar with though.)
Raman and EXAFS/XANES are techniques to probe different types of molecular transitions. Vibrational raman probes molecular vibrations, and XANES probes electronic transitions due to excitation of core electrons. Each technique will help you obtain different molecular properties. The standard approach is to apply these methods to do “static” absorption studies, meaning that one studies the transitions induced by these light sources in order to obtain molecular information of a given sample. The time-resolved techniques expand these measurements along the time dimension, so you can measure these properties but in a sample that is changing extremely quickly in response to a trigger (usually light).
So, it is not that the technique is a cross between these, but rather an approach to take Raman, or XANES, or IR-spectroscopy, or UV/Vis absorption spectroscopy, and then apply it in a time-resolved manner. You can usually take any spectroscopy technique and add “time-resolved” at the beginning and you will find someone doing that. Of course, some techniques are easier to perform in practice than others. I have done some time-resolved XANES experiments, and for those we need to go a synchrotron and the experiment is really tricky. A time-resolved UV/Vis can be done in many university labs. I don’t have practical experience with Raman experiments.