Photosynthesis

Meet our faculty: Naomi Ginsberg

May 21, 2020
Naomi Ginsberg credits her love of learning as the driving force behind her unusual academic journey.

This Hydrogen Fuel Machine Could Be the Ultimate Guide to Self-Improvement

April 5, 2021

Guosong Zeng, Francesca Toma, Berkeley Lab

Guosong Zeng, a postdoctoral scholar, and Francesca Toma, a staff scientist, both in Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division, test an artificial photosynthesis device made of gallium nitride. Toma and Zeng discovered that the device, rather than degrading over time, improves with use. (Credit: Thor Swift/Berkeley Lab)

Three years ago, scientists at...

Why you should stay single: The scientific benefits of using a single photon

October 8, 2020

Illustration of hamburger stack

Like many other labs, Graham Fleming’s group is focusing on interdisciplinary techniques to make new discoveries and explore the mysteries of fundamental processes. Chemistry graduate student Kaydren Orcutt highlights how researchers can combine physics and biology, generating single photons in a bid to unentangle the mysteries of photosynthesis.

The scientists in Graham...

Birgitta Whaley: Finding the quantum in biology

October 28, 2020

Birgitta Whaley, Professor of Chemistry and co-director of the Berkeley Quantum Information and Computation Center, presented this year's endowed G.N. Lewis Lecture at the College of Chemistry. Professor Whaley currently serves on the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She is a foremost expert in the fields of quantum information, quantum physics, molecular quantum mechanics, and quantum biology.

This lecture is given annually in honor of Gilbert Newton Lewis who was the...

Red Light-Powered Device for CO₂ Fixation

July 30, 2024
Scientists have designed a special device that uses low-intensity red light to continuously convert CO₂ into useful chemicals, day and night.

The future of biochemistry

January 12, 2018
The ACS January 2018 Special Biochemistry Issue has included College of Chemistry professors Ming Hammond, Evan Miller, and David Savage

Photosynthesis, Key to Life on Earth, Starts with a Single Photon

June 16, 2023

Illustration of photon activating photosynthesis

Illustration: Jenny Nuss/Berkeley Lab

Using a complex cast of metal-studded pigments, proteins, enzymes, and co-enzymes, photosynthetic organisms can convert the energy in light into the chemical energy for life. And now, thanks to a study published in Nature...

Berkeley’s ecosystem of innovation, entrepreneurship combats climate change

May 16, 2024
UC Berkeley faculty are fast-tracking the development of new and creative climate solutions.

In Memoriam: Kenneth Sauer

November 8, 2022

Dean Douglas Clark announed today the recent passing on November 6th of our colleague and friend, Kenneth (Ken) Sauer, professor emeritus of chemistry. He was 91 years old.

Kenneth Sauer Ken was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1931. He completed his A.B. degree in chemistry at Oberlin College in 1953. He then moved to Cambridge, MA to study gas-phase photochemistry with George...

College faculty and alumni contribute to new DOE 60$M Solar Fuel Research

July 31, 2020

New partnership between DOE national labs and universities builds on JCAP’s advances in artificial photosynthesis, renewable fuels

New solar material test

Scientists at JCAP create new materials by spraying combinations of elements onto thin plates. (Image courtesy of Caltech)

The quest for renewable fuels harvested from the sun...