Ultrafast UV spectroscopy: from a local to a global view of dynamical processes in macromolecules

Abstract

The aim of this Perspective article is to cover recent developments in the application of femtosecond UV spectroscopy to understand molecular dynamics, and outlining potential future directions in this area. With several examples from recent literature the added-value of these techniques and their capability to study in real time changes in structure, dynamics and electrostatic fields of macromolecules in a site-specific fashion, as well as to uncover concerted dynamics in biomolecules, will be shown and discussed. The emerging fields of UV pulse-shaping techniques and UV optical nonlinear spectroscopies will be discussed to outline their potential to generate a novel family of coherent nonlinear spectroscopies for spectroscopic and microscopic applications.