Review of laser flash photolysis of organic molecules (2015–2018)

This chapter serves as a review of the literature concerning the use of laser flash photolysis (LFP) in research reported between the years 2015 and 2018. The first half of the chapter primarily focuses on fundamental studies to characterize reactive intermediates and elucidate their reaction mechanisms, with special attention to a new LFP technique that allows transient absorption to be obtained in crystals. The detection and identification of excited states and their reactivity is also addressed. The second half of the chapter focuses on the use of LFP to understand and influence the development of photochemistry applications such as synthesis, photocages, polymerization, and photocatalysis. Finally, we briefly mention research that uses LFP but is outside the main focus of this chapter, such as the analysis of biological systems and environmental studies.