Background:
Summary of Methods Used
Simple Example:
Theory
The Vibrations
Research Topics:
Fatty Acid Methyl Esters (FAMEs)
School of Chemistry
The Queen's University of Belfast
Why Research?
What can be gained from the research I do?.
I think that the best way to answer this question is to use the summary that I was given by my supervisor when he first described my PhD project to me.
"Vibrational spectroscopy and in particular Raman spectroscopy, is currently undergoing a major expansion and we are using it to look at a wide range of problems from characterisation of drugs of abuse through to therapeutic drug delivery systems and even foodstuffs. The ultimate aim is to develop general methodologies for Raman analysis of major classes of materials.
Extracting structural infomration from vibrational spectroscopy has traditionally been based either on looking at characteristic vibrations (e.g. the C=O stretch of organic compounds) or on a full normal mode analysis, which used to require synthesis of large numbers of isotopically-substituted analogues followed by about one year of painstaking manual fitting of experimental data. Our rate of data aquisition makes this traditional approach impracticable. Fortunately, advances in high performance computing and the commercial availability of efficient algorithms for high level (density functional) vibrational calculations now make it possible to simulate spectra in hours to days. We have a large (and growing) body of experiemental data and have a clear need in the group for a specialist whose main function is to develop strategies for vibrational analysis, working with the experimentalists on their data to relate observed spectroscopic changes (e.g. changes in drug vibrations when they are dissolved in polymeric hosts) to processes occurring at the molecular level."
So that's what I'm hoping to accomplish with my research.
