1. Development of a new method to study time-resolved enthalpy and volume changes during photochemical reaction
Applications to chemical reactions
2. Conformation changes and the dynamics of biological molecules
(A) Photosensor proteins
(1) Photocyclic reaction of photoactive yellow protein (PYP)
Conformation change in time-domain, thermodynamics of intermediates
(2) Photocyclic reaction of octopus rhodopsin
(3) sensory rhodopsin
(4) Anabaena rhodopsin
(5) phototropins
(i) Phot1LOV1
(ii) Phot1LOV2
(iii) Phot2LOV1
(iv) Phot2LOV2
(6) YcgF
(7) PixD
(8) Phytochrome
(9) bacteriaphytochrome
(10) AppA
(11) chryptochrome
(B) Sensor proteins
(1) Calmoduline
(2) HemAT
(C) Energy conversion
reaction center
(D) Protein folding
(1) cytochrome c
(2) apoplastocyanin
(E) ligand reaction
myoglobin
(F) Physical chemistry of proteins
(1) protein diffusion
3. Translational diffusion process of chemically intermediate species in solution
(a) transient radicals
(b) molecules in the excited states
4. Development of a new method to detect time-resolved circular dichroism
5. Studies of excited state dynamics using time-resolved photothermal effect, such as transient grating or transient lens methods
Elementary step of the photothermal effect in solution
(Energy transfer process from the photoexcited molecule to solvent molecules)
(1) Development of new technqiues:
(a) temperature grating
(b) temperature lens
(c) acoustic peak delay
(d) molecular heater-molecular thermometer system
(2) Studies of mechanism of the photothermal effect in solution
6. Development of a time-resolve transient lens method
(a) density lens
(b) temperature lens
(c) Optical Kerr lens
(d) volume lens
(e) population lens
7. Molecular dynamics at interface
(a) Molecular diffusion at solid/liquid and gas/liquid interfaces
(b) time-resolved detection of capillary wave at gas/liquid interface