Coherent control and spectroscopy in biological systems

We use and develop spectroscopic techniques exploiting femtosecond lasers to understand how structural changes in proteins contribute to the unfolding of a biological reaction. The combination of ultra-short infrared pulses and sophisticated femtosecond technologies such as coherent control and coherent spectroscopy provides a powerful tool for studying the femtosecond dynamics of biological systems such as hemoproteins.
Current projects include

-Ultrafast vibrational spectroscopy enables us to study, with femtosecond time resolution, the structural modifications that accompany ligand transfer within molecules such as hemoproteins.  

-Multidimensional infrared spectroscopy (2DIR), a technique we initiated back in 1996, is an experimental approach that has been considerably developed and perfected in many laboratories in recent years. In the infrared range, it provides access to couplings between vibrational modes with subpicosecond resolution.

-Vibrational ascent is a technique for controlling the vibrational motion of a chemical bond, and is based on the use of an infrared pulse selectively exciting a given vibration, and whose frequency drift also enables the anharmonicity of the vibration under consideration to be taken into account.

-AD-ASOPS (Arbitrary Detuning-ASynchronous Optical Sampling) is a technique we have developed and patented, based on the use of two asynchronous laser sources. It enables the response of a system to be measured with subpicosecond time resolution on time scales ranging from milliseconds to femtoseconds.