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Associate Professor Timothy W Schmidt


Contact Details

Associate Professor and

Associate Head of School (Teaching)
Room 315
School of Chemistry, Building F11
The University of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia
E: timothy.schmidt@sydney.edu.au
T: +61 2 9351 2781
F: +61 2 9351 3329
W: http://sydney.edu.au/science/chemistry/~schmidtt

Career Profile

  • BSc (Hons 1M), University of Sydney, 1997.
  • PhD, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2001.
  • Postdoctoral Researcher, Institut für Physikalische Chemie der Universität Basel, Switzerland, 2001-2003.
  • Research Scientist, CSIRO Telecommunications and Industrial Physics, 2003-2004.
  • Lecturer, University of Sydney 2004-2007
  • Senior Lecturer, University of Sydney 2008 - 2010
  • Associate Professor 2011 -

Areas of Interest

  • Laser spectroscopy of extraterrestrial molecules
  • Interstellar chemistry
  • Spectroscopy of carbon rich nebulae
  • Quantum chemical methods and electronic structure

Research

My research straddles many areas of physical and theoretical chemistry. I am fundamentally interested in molecular spectroscopy, that is - in what way molecules absorb light and what are the consequences? Closely linked to this question is the desire to understand and model these processes at a theoretical level.

In addition to the fundamental knowledge gained in studying the electronic and vibrational spectra of a given molecule, the information extracted may be applied to answer broader scientific questions. Two applications of molecular spectroscopy that I am interested in are the identification of interstellar molecules (and therefore obtaining a greater understanding of interstellar chemical processes) and the study of conjugated molecules which are incorporated into molecular electronic components.

Our studies of interstellar spectroscopy led us to discover the C2 radical in the Red Rectangle nebula. We are currently investigating the photophysics of C2 in some detail in order to develop C2 spectroscopy as a probe of extraterrestrial environments. Our laboratory studies of C2 have led to the first direct observation of the c3Su+ state of C2. In doing so we observed the c-d band system of C2 for the first time.

In order to understand electronic spectra of exotic species such as those pictured, calculations must be performed. I am interested in the development and application of quantum mechanical methods for predicting the electronic spectra of various molecules.

Click here for a mp3 download of an interview with Dr Schmidt by Radio New Zealand on his research as an astrochemist.

Publications (2009 to 2013)

  1. Brooke, JSA; Bernath, PF; Schmidt, TW and Bacskay, G. Line strengths and updated molecular constants for the C2 Swan system. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer. 124, 11-20, 2013. DOI: 10.1016/j.jqsrt.2013.02.025

  2. Schulze, TF; Cheng, YY; Khoury, T; Crossley, MJ; Stannowki, B; Lips, K and Schmidt, TW. Micro-optical design of photochemical upconverters for thin-film solar cells. Journal of Photonics for Energy, 3 (1), 034598, 2013. DOI: 10.1117/1.JPE.3.034598

  3. Chalyavi, N; Troy, TP; Bacskay, GB; Nauta, K; Kable, SH; Reid, SA and Schmidt, TW. Excitation spectra of the jet-cooled 4-phenylbenzyl and 4-(4´-methylphenyl)benzyl radicals. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 116 (44), 10780-10785, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/jp309003u

  4. Schulze, TF; Czolk, J; Cheng, Y-Y; Fückel, B; MacQueen, RW; Khoury, T; Crossley, MJ; Stannowski, B; Lips, K; Lemmer, U; Colsmann, A and Schmidt, TW. Efficiency enhancement of organic and thin-film silicon solar cells with photochemical upconversion. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, 116 (43), 22794-22801, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/jp309636m

  5. Tayebjee, MJY; Gray-Weale, AA and Schmidt, TW. Thermodynamic limit of exciton fission solar cell efficiency. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 3 (19), 2749-2754, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/jz301069u

  6. Roberts, DA; Fückel, B; Clady, RGCR; Cheng, YY; Crossley, MJ and Schmidt, TW. Synthesis and ultrafast excited-state dynamics of zinc and palladium triply fused diporphyrins. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 116 (30), 7898-7905, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/jp3043895

  7. Troy, TP; Nakajima, M; Chalyavi, N; Nauta, K; Kable, SH and Schmdit, TW. Hydroxyl addition to aromatic alkenes: Resonance-stabilized radical intermediates. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 116 (30), 7906-7915, 2012. DOI: 10.1021/jp304875r

  8. Troy, TP; Kable, SH; Schmidt, TW and Reid, SA. On the electronic spectroscopy of closed-shell cations derived from resonance-stabilized radicals: Insights from theory and Franck-Condon analysis. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 541 (6), A8, 1-6, 2012. DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201218813


  9. Hirst, LC; Führer, M; Farrell, DJ; Le Bris, A; Guillemoles, J-F; Tayebjee, MJY; Clady, R; Schmidt, TW; Sugiyama, M; Wang, Y; Fujii and Ekins-Daukes, NJ. InGaAs/GaAsP quantum wells for hot carrier solar cells. Proceedings of SPIE - the International Society for Optical Engineering. Volume 8256, Editors: Alexandre Freundlich and jean-Francois F. Guillemoles. ISBN: 978-081948899-2, pp. 82560X-1-6, 2012. DOI: 10.117/12.9105781

  10. Schulze, TF; Cheng, YY; Fückel, B; MacQueen, RW; Danos, A; Davis, NJLK; Tayebjee, MJY; Khoury, T; Clady, RGCR; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ; Stannowski, B; Lips, K and Schmidt, TW. Photochemical upconversion enhanced solar cells: Effect of a back reflector. Australian Journal of Chemistry, 65 (5), 480-485, 2012. DOI: 10.1071/CH12117

  11. Cheng, YY; Fückel, B; MacQueen, RW; Khoury, T; Clady, RGCR; Schulze, TF; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ; Stannowski, B; Lips, K and Schmidt, TW. Improving the light-harvesting of amorphous silicon solar cells with photochemical upconversion. Energy & Environmental Science, 5, 6953-6959, 2012. DOI: 10.1039/c2ee21136j

  12. Clady, R; Tayebjee, MJY; Aliberti, P; König, D; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Conibeer, GJ; Schmidt, TW and Green, MA. Interplay between the hot phonon effect and intervalley scattering on the cooling rate of hot carriers in GaAs and InP. Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, 20 (1), 82-92, 2012. DOI: 10.1002/pip.1121

  13. Chalyavi, N; Bacskay, GB; Menon, AS; Troy, TP; Davis, NJLK; Radom, L; Reid, SA and Schmidt, TW. Spectroscopy and thermochemistry of a jet-cooled open-shell polyene: 1,4-pentadienyl radical. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 135 (12), 124306, 2011. DOI: 10.1063/1.3640475

  14. O'Connor, GD; Troy, TP; Roberts, DA; Chalyavi, N; Fückel, B; Crossley, MJ; Nauta, K; Stanton, JF and Schmidt, TW. Spectroscopy of the free phenalenyl radical. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 133 (37), 14554-14557, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/ja206322n

  15. Troy, TP; Chalyavi, N; Menon, AS; O'Connor, GD; Fückel. B; Nauta, K; Radom, L and Schmidt, TW. The spectroscopy and thermochemistry of phenylallyl radical chromophores. Chemical Science, 2 (9), 1755-1765, 2011. DOI: 10.1039/c1sc00247c

  16. Chalyavi, N; Troy, TP; Nakajima, M; Gibson, BA; Nauta, K; Sharp, RG; Kable, SH and Schmidt, TW. Excitation and emission spectra of jet-cooled naphthylmethyl radicals. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 115 (27), 7959-7965, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/jp203638h

  17. Dehn, S; Tong, KWK; Clady, RGC; Owen, DM; Gaus, K; Schmidt, TW; Braet, F and Thordarson, P. The structure and luminescence properties of europium(III) triflate doped self-assembled pyromellitamide gels. New Journal of Chemistry, 35 (7), 1466-1471, 2011. DOI: 10.1039/c1nj20085b

  18. Schmidt, TW and Bacskay, GB. The 15PIg state of C2. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 134 (22), 224311 (4pp), 2011. DOI: 10.1063/1.3599933

  19. Fückel, B; Roberts, DA; Cheng, YY; Clady, RGCR; Piper, RB; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ and Schmidt, TW. Singlet oxygen mediated photochemical upconversion of NIR light. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2 (9), 966-971, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/jz200270w

  20. Konkolewicz, D; Gaillard, S; West, AG; Cheng, YY; Gray-Weale, A; Schmidt, TW; Nolan, SP and Perrier, S. Luminescent hyperbranched polymers: Combining thiol-yne chemistry with gold-mediated C–H bond activation. Organometallics, 30 (6), 1315-1318, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/om200103f

  21. Goldstein, DC; Cheng, YY; Schmidt, TW; Bhadbhade, M and Thordarson, P. Photophysical properties of a new series of water soluble iridium bisterpyridine complexes functionalised at the 4´ position. Dalton Transactions, 40 (9), 2053-2061, 2011. DOI: 10.1039/c0dt01317j

  22. Cheng, YY; Fückel, B; Khoury, T; Clady, RGCR; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ and Schmidt, TW. Entropically driven photochemical upconversion. The Journal of Physical Chemistry, 115 (6), 1047-1053, 2011. DOI: 10.1021/jp108839g

  23. Schmidt, TW. Astronomical molecular spectroscopy. Book chapter in: Computational Spectroscopy: Methods, Experiments and Applications. ISBN: 978-3-527-32649-5. Editor: Dr Jörg Grunenberg. Published by Wiley-VCH, Chapter 13, pp. 377-395, 2010.

  24. Tayebjee, MJY; Hirst, LC; Ekins-Daukes, NJ and Schmidt, TW. The efficiency limit of solar cells with molecular absorbers: A master equation approach. Journal of Applied Physics, 108 (12), 124506 (7pp), 2010. DOI: 10.1063/1.3517826

  25. MacQueen, RW; Cheng, YY; Clady, RGCR and Schmidt, TW. Towards an aligned luminophore solar concentrator. Optics Express, 18 (102), A161-A166, 2010. DOI: 10.1364/OE.18.00A161

  26. Cheng, YY; Fückel, B; Khoury, T; Clady, RGCR; Tayebjee, MJY; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ and Schmidt, TW. Kinetic analysis of photochemical upconversion by triplet-triplet annihilation: Beyond any spin statistical limit. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 1 (12), 1795-1799, 2010. DOI: 10.1021/jz100566u

  27. Cheng, YY; Khoury, T; Clady, RGCR; Tayebjee, MJY; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ and Schmidt, TW. On the efficiency limit of triplet-triplet annihilation for photochemical upconversion. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 12 (1), 66-71, 2010. DOI: 10.1039/b913243k

  28. Reilly, NJ; Nakajima, M; Troy, TP; Kokkin, DL; Chalyavi, N; Duncan, K; Nauta, K; Sharp, RG; Schmidt, TW and Kable, SH. Two-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy for the identification of discharge intermediates. The 8th Asian International Seminar on Atomic and Molecular Physics, University of Western Australia, 24-28 November, 2008. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 185, 012037 (4pp), 2009. DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/185/1/012037

  29. Auckett, JE; Cheng, YY; Khoury, T; Clady, RGCR; Ekins-Daukes, NJ; Crossley, MJ and Schmidt, TS. Efficient up-conversion by triplet-triplet annihilation. The 8th Asian International Seminar on Atomic and Molecular Physics, University of Western Australia, 24-28 November, 2008. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 185, 012037 (4pp), 2009. DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/185/1/012002

  30. Glinski, RJ; Michaels, PD; Anderson, CD; Schmidt, TW; Sharp, RG; Sitko, ML; Bernstein, LS and Van Winckel, H. Current assessment of the Red Rectangle band problem. Astrophys. Space Sci., 323 (4), 337-344, 2009. DOI: 10.1007/s10509-009-0084-9

  31. Nakajima, M; Schmidt, TW; Sumiyoshi, Y and Endo, Y. An experimental and theoretical study on vibrational structure in the (B)over-tilde-(X)over-tilde transition of CH2CHS. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 131 (10), 104310/1-7, 2009. DOI: 10.1063/1.3224146

  32. Troy, TP; Nakajima, M; Chalyavi, N; Clady, RGCR; Nauta, K; Kable, SH and Schmidt, TW. Identification of the jet-cooled 1-indanyl radical by electronic spectrscopy. J. Phys. Chem. A, 113 (38), 10279-10283, 2009. DOI: 10.1021/jp905831m

  33. Reilly, NJ; Nakajima, M; Troy, TP; Chalyavi, N; Duncan, KA; Nauta, K; Kable, SH and Schmidt, TW. Spectroscopic identification of the resonance-stabilized cis- and trans-1-vinylpropargyl radicals. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 131 (37), 13423-13429, 2009. DOI: 10.1021/ja904521c

  34. Nakajima, M; Joester, JA; Page, NI; Reilly, NJ; Bacskay, GB; Schmidt, TW and Kable, SH. Quantum chemical study and experimental observation of a new band system of C2, e 3Pig-c 3Sigma+u . Journal of Chemical Physics, 131 (4), 044301, 2009. DOI: 10.1063/1.3175013

  35. Reilly, NJ; Nakajima, M; Gibson, BA; Schmidt, TW and Kable, SH. Laser-induced fluorescence and dispersed fluorescence spectroscopy of jet-cooled 1-phenylpropargyl radical. Journal of Chemical Physics, 130 (14), 144313, 2009. DOI: 10.1063/1.3110682

  36. Reilly, NJ; Nakajima, M; Gibson, BA; Schmidt, TW and Kable, SH. Publisher's note: Laser-induced fluorescence and dispersed fluorescence spectroscopy of jet-cooled 1-phenylpropargyl radical. Journal of Chemical Physics, 131 (2), 029902, 2009. DOI: 10.1063/1.3171934

  37. Schmidt, TW; Pino, T and Brechignac, P. The C-H stretch intensities of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon cations. Origins and astrophysical implications. Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 113 (15), 3434-3541, 2009. DOI: 10.1021/jp900931e

  38. Nakajima, M; Schmidt, TW; Miyoshi, A; Sumiyoshi, Y and Endo, Y. Gas-phase spectroscopy of the 2 3Sigma(-)-X 3Sigma(-) electronic transition of CCS. Journal of Chemical Physics, 130 (1), 014302, 2009. DOI: 10.1063/1.3042269