Research Interests

My main research interest is to understand chemical reactions and relaxation phenomena in condensed phases, especially in liquids. Molecules in liquids interact with each other in a complex manner, and this complicated interaction is a source of various aspects of the dynamical behaviors in liquids. In order to understand chemical events in condensed phases including reactions in biological molecules, it is necessary to investigate fundamental properties in the condensed phases in a molecular level.

Research Subjects

• Optical nonlinear spectroscopy in liquids by means of intense infrared ultrashort pulses
• Low-frequency modes in condensed phases studied by terahertz radiation
• Molecular dynamics in confinement system with a nanometer scale
• Microscopic structures and dynamics of hydrogen-bonding liquids and their solutions

Selected Publications

◆"Vibrational Dynamics of the CO Stretching Mode of 9-Fluorenone in Alcohol Solution", S. Hirai, M. Banno, K. Ohta, D. K. Palit, and K. Tominaga, Chem. Phys. Lett. 450, 44-48 (2007).

◆"Ultrafast Dynamics of the Carbonyl Stretching Vibration in Acetic Acid in Aqueous Solution Studied by Sub-Picosecond Infrared Spectroscopy", M. Banno, K. Ohta, and K. Tominaga, J. Phys. Chem. A 112, 4170-4175 (2008).

◆"Structural Changes of Poly-L-Lysine in Solution and Lyophilized Form", O. Kambara, A. Tamura, A. Naito, and K. Tominaga, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 10, 5042-5044 (2008).

◆"Vibrational Dynamics of Benzoic Acid in Nonpolar Solvents Studied by Subpicosecond Infrared Pump-Probe Spectroscopy", S. Yamaguchi, M. Banno, K. Ohta, K. Tominaga, and T. Hayashi, Chem. Phys. Lett. 462, 238-242 (2008).

◆"Dependence of low frequency spectra on solute and solvent in solutions studied by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy", P. Dutta and K. Tominaga, Mol. Phys. a special issue on "spectral dynamics and related topics in physics, chemistry, and biology", (2009) in press.