Dominant research topics include investigations of the structure and reactivity of molecules in electronically excited states, hydrogen-bond-induced phenomena, electrochemiluminescence, astrochemistry, synthesis and supramolecular chemistry, and application and development of new spectroscopic techniques with high spectral, spatial or temporal resolution. The most important achievements of the Department in recent years include:

• Elucidation of mechanisms of tautomerism in porphycenes: discovery of mode-specific tunneling splittings due to quantum delocalization of two inner protons; observation of rare tautomeric cis forms in porphycene derivatives; observation of tautomerization in single molecules; developing a methodology for the determination of ground and excited state tautomerization rates
• Observation of various ground and excited state phenomena induced by hydrogen bonds in bifunctional aromatic molecules. These include intramolecular and intermolecular proton transfer, extremely efficient internal conversion due to multiple hydrogen bonds, electron transfer across hydrogen bonds, and solvent-induced syn-anti rotamerization
• Supersonic jet studies of structure, stoichiometry, photophysics and photochemistry for water and alcohol complexes with electron-donor acceptors (e.g., 4-diethylaminopyridine) and proton-donor acceptors (such as 1H-pyrrolo[3,2-h]quinoline)
• Detection and elucidation of processes of phototautomerism and photochromism for a series of ß-thioxoketones and Schiff bases
• Comprehensive investigation of molecular excited states (TICT states) in systems of the electron donor-acceptor type (D-A) formally connected by a single bond
• Demonstration that Marcus theory may be applied for uniform quantitative characterisation of intramolecular radiative and nonradiative electron transfer
• Investigation of the electronic structure and geometry of large p-electron D-A systems
• Discovery of many new systems which exhibit photoinduced single or double proton transfer
• Observation of mode-specific proton tunneling in excited 2-(2'-pyridyl)pyrrole
• Elucidation of factors governing electrochemiluminescense (ECL) and the quest for systems characterised by particularly high ECL efficiency
• Studies on spectroscopy, structure, and reactivity of astrophysically significant molecules, in particular on unsaturated carbon-nitrogen chains
• Development of polarized spectroscopic methodology allowing:
  - the analysis of linear dichroism spectra for low-symmetry molecules;
  - the determination of chemical reaction rate based on the analysis of luminescence anisotropy and linear dichroism spectra;
  - the interpretation of electronic absorption and magnetic circular dichroism spectra of aromatic molecules (particularly for isomeric and expanded porphyrins);
• Investigations of molecules, complexes, and transient species isolated in the gas phase in supersonic molecular beams or in low-temperature matrices of noble gases
• Development of single molecule spectroscopy and microscopy techniques
• Elaboration of a computational method that allows to predict the structure of microenvironments of organic and inorganic chromophores in noble gas matrices and their electronic and infrared spectra.
• Efficient synthesis of porphycene
• Synthesis of new luminophores

• Synthesis, spectroscopy and investigation of phototherapeutic properties of porphyrin derivatives
• Reactivity in single molecules
• Application of femtosecond time-resolved methods to the investigation of electron and proton transfer mechanisms
• Studies of chromophores embedded in active environments
• Practical use of charge separation processes (with placement of chromophores in solid phases)
• Synthesis and properties of sensors
• Photochemistry on surfaces probed by Raman, luminescence, and various single molecule spectroscopy techniques
• Coupling of laser photolysis with NMR detection

The Department has rich international cooperations with the participation of scientists from Germany, Denmark, Austria, Holland, France, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Spain, USA, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. The Department has acquired a status of the Centre of Excellence CPM (Centre for Photoactive Materials) in the framework of the 5th Framework Programme of the European Union. It now participates in several EU projects.

• Paweł Borowicz, Ph.D.
• Igor Czerski, Ph.D.
• Jacek Dobkowski, Ph.D.
• Alexandr Gorski, Ph.D.
• Zbigniew R. Grabowski, Prof.
• Jerzy Herbich, Assoc. Prof.
• Andrzej Kapturkiewicz, Prof.
• Jerzy Karpiuk, Ph.D.
• Robert Kołos, Assoc. Prof.
• Arkadiusz Listkowski, Ph.D.
• Marek Pietraszkiewicz, Prof.
• Hubert Piwoński, Ph.D.
• Czesław Radzewicz, Prof.
• Krystyna Rotkiewicz, Prof.
• Jerzy Sepioł, Assoc. Prof.
• Yuriy Stepanenko, Ph.D.
• Jacek Waluk, Prof.