I am currently working on a high-resolution apparatus. This laser, a Coherent CR699-21 ring dye laser, is capable of producing single-frequency radiation with a bandwidth on the order of MHz. This is about one part in 109 at normal operating frequencies in the near-visible ultraviolet. This resolution provides the ability to perform rotationally-resolved electronic spectroscopy.

My initial project involves the chromophore of Tyrosine (as well as other interesting molecules -- see Wendy's work ), p-cresol. Currently the laser is working and I am busy trying to measure high-resolution spectra of p-cresol. When things are working it is a lot of fun.

My work on p-cresol is the first step in trying to elucidate the gas-phase structure of peptides. Previous work in our group suggests that when Tyrosine is entrained in a supersonic jet there are a number of conformers that are present. It is believed that these conformers are rotamers about two bonds in Tyrosine . Using a single-frequency laser it should be possible to distinguish these conformers and determine their structures by extracting rotational constants from our spectra.