Clifford Kubiak Guest Lecture Series: Part 2

Ultrafast Electron Transfer in Inorganic Mixed Valence Ground States

Inorganic mixed valence complexes provide a platform for probing electron transfer at ultrafast time scales. In this lecture, Clifford Kubiak will discuss how the coalescence of ν(CO) lineshapes in one-dimensional infrared spectra can be used to determine electron transfer rate constants in mixed valence ground states.

These studies reveal unusual behavior, including electron transfer rates that increase as temperature decreases and deviations from several major assumptions in conventional electron transfer theory. The lecture will examine how solvent dynamics, molecular vibrations, ion pairing and hydrogen-bond bridges affect electron transfer, and how the three-state model of Brunschwig, Creutz and Sutin explains intervalence charge transfer bands involving metal-metal and metal-bridging ligand charge transfer.

Get to know Clifford Kubiak

Clifford P. Kubiak is Distinguished Professor and the Harold C. Urey Chair in Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. His research spans inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry and nanomaterials, with a longstanding focus on the chemistry, electrochemistry and photochemistry of carbon dioxide.

Since 1987, Kubiak’s group has studied the catalytic reduction of carbon dioxide, using spectroscopy and mechanistic studies to understand how electrocatalysts convert CO₂ into useful chemical products. He has led major multi-university research efforts on electrochemical CO₂ conversion and was a founding investigator and project leader of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis.

Kubiak has published more than 300 articles and has supervised more than 100 PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.