Molecules in motion

The group for molecular kinetics and spectroscopy at ETH Zurich investigate s the fundamental physical-chemical primary processes of chemical reactions . We have developed a conceptually new approach to derive these primary pro cesses of intramolecular kinetics on time scales leading into the femtoseco nd and subfemtosecond domain on the basis of infrared spectroscopy with hig h frequency resolution but without short-time resolution. Selected applicat ions include intramolecular wavepacket dynamics of chemical functional grou ps of isolated, individual molecules and IR-laser chemistry of molecules un der infrared multiphoton excitation, hydrogen bond tunneling dynamics in hy drogen fluoride clusters (HF)(2) and the tunneling stereomutation of protot ypical chiral molecules. One of the greatest current challenges is the eluc idation of the influence of the parity violating weak interaction mediated by the Z-boson of high energy physics on the dynamics of chiral molecules.