 | | | |  | | | | | Yutaka Sasaki
Yokohama Laboratory, Analytical Services Division
Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. (MCRC) | |  | | | | | The Mitsubishi Chemical Group has been manufacturing and developing the products what they call “optically functional materials” as organic photoreceptors, optical recording media, inorganic phosphors and functional dyes etc. Optically functional materials based on new principles are expected to emerge from all over the world also in the future. These materials play a role only when light is irradiated. So the analysis of those in a stable and a static condition can't provide the guidelines for designing more efficient materials or new products. It's very important to understand the phenomena which occur in those materials after light absorption.
LASER instruments invented in 1960 have unexpectedly progressed within less than 50 years. The performance like output power, running stability, wavelength tunability, easy operation, robustness and compactness etc. has been greatly improved. Moreover the laser instruments which emit the pulsed light of only 10-14 (1/100 trillions) seconds duration are recently commercially available. Light travels only 0.003 mm (3µm) in 10-14 seconds. Such lasers are called “ultrafast lasers” and their application to the laser manufacturing has already been started.
Unique experimental technology called “time-resolved spectroscopy” is the application of ultrafast lasers to the analysis of ultrafast phenomena. This technique is very powerful for monitoring the photoreaction in the optically functional materials along real time course with ultrahigh time-resolution. It's possible to know what kind of photoreaction occurs (ionization, electron transfer or dissociation?), what kind of intermediate is generated (radical or ion?) and how long it survives. By correlating the material performance with concentrations, properties, lifetimes and reaction rates of these photogenerated species, we can obtain the strategy for advanced material design. We have been working on this technology for long years, accumulating a lot of know-how and contributing to the materials R&D in the Mitsubishi Chemical Group.
We hope that the further progress of laser technologies will bring about new products and markets. And we will watch what LASER will make in this century. | | | | | |  | Dec. 2005 | Mitsuru Tanamura, Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. | | Sep. 2005 | Shinichiro Nakamura, Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. | | Aug. 2005 | Makoto Ue, Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. | | Jul. 2005 | Hideki Murayama, Frontier Carbon Corporation | | Jun. 2005 | Minako Hoshi, Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences | | May 2005 | Fumihiko Shimizu, Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. | | Apr. 2005 | Naoto Kijima, Mitsubishi Chemical Group Science and Technology Research Center, Inc. | | Mar. 2005 | Makoto Seki, Mitsubishi Pharma Corporation | | Jan. - Feb. 2005 | Michikazu Horie, Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co., Ltd. | | |  | | | |
