= Richard A. Mathies
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<Richard A. Mathies> is a chemist whose research develops laser-based measurements of molecular reaction dynamics. His Berkeley profile describes work using <Raman spectroscopy> and <femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy> to connect changing vibrational spectra with changing molecular structure.<Richard A. Mathies profile at the University of California Berkeley>[Research, Ultrafast Vibrational Spectroscopy of Reaction Dynamics.]{ref}
With <David W. McCamant> and <Philipp Kukura>, <Richard A. Mathies> coauthored the2003 broadband stimulated-Raman method. Its instrumentation combines a spectrally narrow Raman pump with a short broadband probe, so spectral selectivity and rapid probing are assigned different roles in the experiment.<Femtosecond Broadband Stimulated Raman: A New Approach for High-Performance Vibrational Spectroscopy by David W. McCamant and others>[Introduction and Fig.1; author byline.]{ref}
An original gain example explains what the detector comparison measures. At one probe wavelength, a properly corrected pump-on signal103 and pump-off signal100 give a ratio1.03, or a3% increase. If both readings also contain an unremoved detector offset20, the raw ratio123/120 is only1.025. <Background subtraction> and normalization belong in the <measurement model>; a small spectral feature cannot be interpreted independently of them. The primary method uses dark-corrected, reference-normalized gain measurements.<Femtosecond Broadband Stimulated Raman: A New Approach for High-Performance Vibrational Spectroscopy by David W. McCamant and others>[Data Collection, Eq.4.]{ref}
The scientific contribution is both instrumental and interpretive: obtaining rapid vibrational information requires controlled pulses, detection and a model connecting the optical response to the reacting molecules.
\Image[https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/styles/openberkeley_brand_widgets_rectangle/public/mathies-rich-450x300.jpg?itok=tVFbRNxu×tamp=1770442652]
{title=<Richard A. Mathies>, portrait identified by his Berkeley profile}
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