The Physical Chemistry groups at UCLA lead some of the strongest research efforts in the nation aimed at understanding the physics underlying chemical phenomena. Our faculty explore a wide range of research problems in experimental, theoretical and materials chemistry. UCLA's physical chemists have a long-standing tradition of collegiality and enthusiasm for research, which has led to many collaborations between the different p-chem groups and fostered many joint projects, with close ties between theory and experiment. Because of the diversity of the problems we study, the physical chemists at UCLA work closely not only with each other but also with scientists from a variety of disciplines, including organic chemists, biochemists, physicists and engineers. This plethora of collaborations, combined with the fact that the average physical chemistry group consists of six to eight students, gives UCLA physical chemistry students an unusually flexible and rich research experience characterized by close interaction with multiple faculty members.

Research projects at UCLA include experiments on the nanoscale mechanical motions involved in DNA transcription, the screaming of yeast cells, the elasticity of viruses, the microrheology of biopolymer solutions and the cytoplasm, and the use of new forms of NMR to detect the seeds of cancer. Physical Chemists are developing new hybrid organic-inorganic materials for making high-conversion and flexible solar cells, nanobottles for controlled release, and nanoscale ring arrays for nanoelectronics. Femtosecond pump-probe laser spectroscopy experiments are revealing the structure of solvent molecules responding to changes of reacting solutes, and high-resolution rotational spectroscopies of molecular beams are being measured to understand the fundamental potential energy landscapes of interacting molecules.

Equipment in the Materials Creation lab includes a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), a SQUID magnetometer, light scattering particle size distribution analysis systems, FTIR, and UV-VIS optical spectrometers. The Magnetic Resonance lab consists of 5 NMR spectrometers from 600 to 300 MHz for liquid samples, a 300 MHz solid-state NMR, and an EPR. The Mass Spectrometry lab has six mass spectrometers with several ionization methods and a range of analyzers including time of flight, quadrupole, ion trap, ion cyclotron resonance, and several tandem combinations of mass analyzers. In addition, the J.D. McCullough X-ray Laboratory has two single-crystal and three powder X-ray diffractometers. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) facilities are available in the CNSI and the DOE Biochemistry Instrumentation lab. We have an automated Ultratech XLS i-line stepper lithography facility; this is the most advanced lithography system on campus and rivals equipment at national facilities, such as Cornell and Stanford. The biophotonics facility boasts three of the world's most advanced Leica confocal microscopy systems, fully equipped for 3D live cell imaging.