Disentangling excitation dynamics in 2D materials under bias: leveraging theory, electrochemistry, and time-resolved spectroscopy

Spectroscopy has the potential to reveal the structure and dynamics of complex materials, ranging from chromophores in solution to molecular aggregates and nanomaterial heterostructures. Yet, disentangling spectral signals and extracting an intuitive picture of how excitations form, move, and exchange energy is one of the deepest and most persistent challenges of physical chemistry. In this talk, I will offer a vignette on our work developing and applying approaches to predict and understand spectral features in nanomaterial systems. Specifically, I will highlight how we have been able to demonstrate how the unusual photophysics of atomically thin 2D materials enables hot carrier extraction for photocatalysis. Then, I will illustrate how addressing the challenge of hot carrier extraction enabled us to develop a simple scheme to disentangle the signals of exotic quasiparticles that explain the tunability of the optical behavior of these materials as a function of potential, laser fluence, and time.