Femtochemistry has been widely developed and utilized in various research fields. The now-established techniques of femtochemistry, which encompass spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and photoelectron methods, continue to reveal the atomic-scale dynamics of the chemical bond, especially the atomic motions of elementary chemical reactions.

Our current interest focuses on understanding of complex systems and here we highlight some areas of study: mesoscopic electron solvation and ultrafast dynamics of model biological chromophores (see abstracts below). An overview of the field up to the year 2000 can be found in the article Femtochemistry: Atomic-Scale Dynamics of the Chemical Bond Using Ultrafast Lasers, A. H. Zewail, Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl. 2000, 39, 2586-2631 [Web link], originally published in Les Prix Nobel: The Nobel Prizes 1999, ed. T. Frängsmyr, Almqvist&Wiksell, Stockholm, 2000, p. 110 [Web link], reproduced in Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1996-2000, ed. I. Grenthe, World Scientific, Singapore, 2003, p. 274 [Web link], and in a series of publications from international conferences which are held biannually since 1993.