TIME-RESOLVED CIRCULAR-DICHROISM SPECTROSCOPY - EXPERIMENT, THEORY, AND APPLICATIONS TO BIOLOGICAL-SYSTEMS

Recent advances have made it possible to improve the time resolution of natural and magnetically induced circular dichroism spectral measurements from the millisecond to the nanosecond and picosecond time regimes. These techniques are described along with several applications which demonstrate the utility of these measurements. Specific applications to studies of heme protein structural changes following ligand photodissociation and of intermediates of bacterial photosynthetic reaction centers are presented which demonstrate the ability of these techniques to provide new information about the structural dynamics and electronic states of reaction intermediates.