Speaker
Description
Organic materials are the building blocks of life. From simple molecules such as glucose to complex proteins and DNA, these organic compounds drive essential processes that make life possible. Many of these processes involve thermally induced phase transitions - rapid structural or chemical changes occurring on very short timescales, many ranging from milliseconds to microseconds. The terahertz (THz) spectral window overlaps with the vibrational energies of many of these organic materials and can be used to investigate collective molecular motions, allowing changes in molecular structure and chemistry to be closely monitored.
Glucose, a key organic compound, serves as a prime example, as it exhibits a sharp THz resonance indicative of its crystalline structure and features an intriguing temperature-induced melting process eventually leading to caramelization. To investigate this transition, we employ real-time single-pulse THz spectroscopy, a technique capable of capturing rapid, irreversible chemical changes with microsecond resolution. In this study, we monitor the real-time melting dynamics of glucose using both visible-light transmission and single-pulse THz monitoring in a pump-probe configuration, resolving individual pulses at the laser’s repetition rate. Simultaneous high-speed imaging provides spatially resolved snapshots of the transition from microscopic crystals to liquid.
We present insights into temperature-induced phase transition in glucose on a sub-millisecond timescale. Such investigations will further advance our understanding of ultrafast irreversible physical and chemical processes in organic materials and, more broadly, biological systems.
| Keyword-1 | Single-pulse spectroscopy |
|---|---|
| Keyword-2 | Glucose |
| Keyword-3 | THz |