Molecular photophysics

Polyatomic molecules exhibit a wide range of complex, but transient, photophysical behaviour much of which has only recently been observed with the advent of laser pulses of picosecond and femtosecond duration. Several of these processes, such as wavepacket dynamics, photodissociation and isomerization of a chemical bond, electron transfer and solvent stabilization of excited states are discussed along with the techniques and lasers used for their measurement.