Phone: (416) 978-0366
Email:  dmiller@lphys.chem.utoronto.ca
Web Site: http://lphys.chem.utoronto.ca/

E X P E R T I S E

Photonics

R E S E A R C H     F O C U S

The Miller group is one of the first to construct nanofluidic devices. This lengthscale represents the next generation advance over microfluidics and "lab-on-a-chip". Mixing times for studying chemical and biological processes can be sped up by a factor of 100 in these nanoscale devices over their microfluidic counterparts currently used for example in stop-flow studies. This work is leading to an exploration of liquid flow and fluid dynamics on an unprecedented lengthscale. For our present purposes, this research focus is aimed at using these novel devices to enable a direct measurement of the many body potential of liquid water..."Life Force"...which was not possible before this advance. The pathlengths of pure H2O must be less than 500 nm to avoid high OD effects on photon echo determinations of couplings re: OH vibration and hydrogen bonding.  We can now for the first time directly observe the hydrogen bond dynamics under full resonant conditions that are key to understanding the special properties of liquid H2O.  This work has revealed that quantum coherence effects exist in water for fleeting moments on the 10-100 fs timescale but that there is sufficient intermolecular coupling between waters to challenge our present physical models for the motions responsible for water's special properties.