Niri Govind- Physicist at PNNL

https://www.pnnl.gov/people/niri-govind

"Shining Light and Making Molecules Dance: Theoretical Explorations in X-ray Spectroscopies and Ultrafast Dynamics"

Abstract: Understanding how charge and nuclear motion evolve within a molecule following photoexcitation is central to unraveling the fundamental principles that govern photoinduced processes in chemistry and materials. X-rays, with their element-specific sensitivity, provide a unique window into these ultrafast phenomena, revealing how electrons and nuclei move and couple under non-equilibrium conditions. The emergence of X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) sources now makes it possible to probe such processes in both gas and condensed phases with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Gaining microscopic insight from these experiments requires theoretical simulations of the underlying electronic and structural dynamics, as well as predictive models for core-level spectroscopic observables. In this talk, I will present our theoretical efforts to model static and transient X-ray absorption and emission spectra, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS), and X-ray circular dichroism (XCD) signals. Applications will include solvated and mixed-valence transition-metal complexes, intramolecular proton transfer in hydrogen-bonded systems that explicitly incorporate nuclear quantum effects, and chiral molecular assemblies. Comparisons with experiment and theoretical predictions for emerging X-ray observables will also be discussed.

Bio: Niri Govind is a Physicist and Laboratory Fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and an Affiliate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington. He earned his undergraduate degree in Physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (Chennai) and his Ph.D. in Physics from McGill University. He joined PNNL following a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and several years in industry. His research spans electronic structure theory, excited-state dynamics, X-ray spectroscopies, polaritonics, and in developing quantum algorithms for electronic structure problems.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YweLcZcAAAAJ&hl=en