Seminar in Physics: Nonlinear light scattering spectroscopy and its relevance for probing the biological molecules at hidden soft matter and planar interfaces

Dr Kailash Chandra Jena, Institute of Bioengineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, will be visiting IIT Ropar on April 5 (friday) and will deliver a seminar as a part of PHYSeminar series.

Title: Nonlinear light scattering spectroscopy and its relevance for probing the biological molecules at hidden soft matter and planar interfaces

Venue: Conference Room

Time: 2:30 pm

Date: April 05, 2013

Abstract:

Life occurs in three dimensions. The living cells and other organelles require mem-branes for protection from the outside liquid like environment. The structural backbone of a biological membrane is the phospholipid bilayer where phospholipid molecules are the major constituents. Probing experimentally the interfacial structure of biological membrane is a challenging task for extracting better molecular level understanding on membrane formation and cell functioning. In my presentation, I will discuss about the study of interfacial structural conformations of 3- dimensional phospholipid monolayers on a nanoscopic oil droplet in an oil-in-water emulsion system. It serves as an approach to probe 3-deminesional model membrane systems. We have used a surface active and chemically sensitive nonlinear sum-frequency scattering (SFS) spectroscopic tool to probe
the miniature surface of the oil droplet. The SFS tool is based on the process of second order nonlinear spectroscopy and light scattering. The measured scattering intensity provides the vibrational spectrum of the interfacial moieties present at the interfacial region.
Second part of my talk would be on oil-in-water emulsion systems. Many of the food products, health care products, cosmetics, and drug delivery system rely in the oil-in-water emulsion system. The stability of the emulsion systems are strongly influenced by the state of the droplet interface in the dispersed water medium. I will elaborate my discussion on the role of ionic surfactants on emulsion stability. At the last part of my
presentation, I will discuss the structure of water molecules at planar charged solid /water interface. I will also talk on phase sensitive SF generation spectroscopy and will illustrate its utility on extracting the absolute phase (exact orientation) information about the molecules present at the interface.

Tea will be served.

You are requested to kindly attend this seminar.