Personal Home Page Fred Brouwer
PhD student vacancy
A vacancy is available for a PhDstudent for the FOM project Fundamental Aspects of Friction (collaboration with prof. D. Bonn, Institute of Physics). Our contribution will consist of the functionalization of materials with mechanosensitive fluorophores, and their photophysical characterization. See page "vacancies" for more information.
4th Photochemistry Summer School 2012 "Photochemistry, Fundamentals and Applications"
It is our pleasure to announce the 4th Photochemistry Summer School 2012, an advanced course covering fundamentals and applications of photochemistry. This School will be from September 15-19, 2012 inWijk aan Zee (The Netherlands) and is organized by the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry under the auspices of the European Photochemistry Association (EPA). This post-graduate school is intended for PhD students and other interested scientists who are active in the field of photochemistry in the broadest sense, or make use of photochemical or photophysical methods in their research work. The specialized lectures by international experts will be preceded by a short(optional) recapitulation of the basic aspects of molecular photochemistry and photophysics. The lecturers will be: Céline Frochot (Nancy, France), Rienk van Grondelle (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), A. Prasanna de Silva (Belfast, UK), Michel Orrit (Leiden, The Netherlands), Adalgisa Sinicropi (Siena, Italy), Sander Woutersen (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Registration is open for PhD-students, postdoctoral students and industrial scientists. For more information and registration see www.hrsmc.nl
HRSMC web site
John van Geuns Chair Molecular Spectroscopy
Since December 1, 2006, I held the special chair "Molecular Spectroscopy", supported by the John van Geuns Foundation. More information on the activities of the John van Geuns Foundation is available via the link at the topof the page.
My inaugural lecture was on April 18, 2008. For more information,(in Dutch) see Old News.
Molecular Photonics
.. is a branch of science that is engaged with the study of the effects that electromagnetic radiation (mostly in the ultraviolet and visible range) has on molecular materials. A few of the hot research topics in this field, with potential applications in materials and life science are (organic) solar cells, luminescence based medical diagnostics, and light sources based on electrochemiluminescence. The scientific background of the Molecular Photonics research team comprises molecular spectroscopy and photochemistry in a broad sense, and our research contributes to the development of these traditional fields. A great challenge is to explore the possibilities to conceive and develop new molecule-based devices in the context of nanotechnology (nanophotonics, plasmonics, biomolecular photonics, molecular machines), and catalysis.
The main specific areas of interest in my group are:
- light-driven motor molecules
- fluorescent organocatalysts
- photoactivation of water splitting catalysts
- fluorescent labels and probes
The research tools used comprise:
- molecular design, synthesis and characterization
- surface chemistry
- molecular computational chemistry
- steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopies
- microspectroscopy and microphotochemistry,including single molecule spectroscopy
Student projects are available in all these areas. The nature of the research work can vary from mainly organic synthesis to purely spectroscopic studies, possibly mixed with molecular computations, all depending on the student's interest!
Links
Van 't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences (HIMS)
research group Molecular Photonics
List of publications