TAME-plasmons

About

Ultrafast spectroscopy is a powerful tool able to disclose the atomistic real-time motion picture of the basic chemical events behind technology and Life, such as catalytic reactions or photosynthetic light harvesting.
Nowadays, by cleverly harnessing the interaction of the studied molecules with plasmons (collective electron excitations supported, e.g., by metal nanoparticles) it is becoming possible to focus these investigations on specific nanoscopic regions, such as a portion of a catalytic surface or of a photosynthetic membrane. This coupling can also produce new quantum effects such as molecule-plasmon hybrid excitations.
On the other hand, it makes the real-time molecular evolution and its perturbation by light more complex, and thus calls for new theoretical treatments. The available ones are unable to tackle this complexity, because they consist of phenomenological models focused on field enhancements or on generic features of the various plasmon-molecule coupling regimes.

The goal of TAME-Plasmons is to develop a theoretical chemistry approach to directly simulate the real time evolution of molecules interacting with plasmons and light.