Invited
Probing structural motifs and conformational preferences in biomolecules

Recently great progress has been made in understanding the structures of isolated biomolecules and their effects on basic properties by combing novel laser spectroscopies with quantum computations. Some of the spectroscopies employ double resonance or hole-burning techniques that allow to monitor electronic and vibrational spectra, where the latter use infrared (IR) sources in limited ranges (mainly covering hydride stretch vibrations). Full vibrational spectra that include collective and low-frequency modes constitute a real challenge for experiment and theory. Here, ionization-loss stimulated Raman spectroscopy (ILSRS) was applied to representative neurotransmitters (NTs) to obtain new information on their structural details.