HREELS Investigations of Transition Metal Oxide-Adsorbate Interactions

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This project is in the general area of analytical and surface chemistry and in the subfield of surface vibrational spectroscopy. During the tenure of this three-year continuing grant, Professor Langell and her students will develop and test computational procedures to enhance the applicability of high resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy (HREELS) to the study of adsorbates on transition metal oxides (TMOs). HREELS has proven to be an invaluable tool in the characterization of metal adsorbates. Presently, it is only of limited usefulness for the characterization of adsorbates on TMOs because intense surface phonons from the substrate interfere with the vibrational spectroscopic signals of interest. Professor Langell's approach draws upon the Maximum Entropy Method to develop a phonon deconvolution procedure to remove much of the interfering phonon structure and greatly improve the resolution of TMO-adsorbate HREELS. %%% Attainment of the goals of this project will enable the use of a sensitive vibrational spectroscopic technique (HREELS) for the detailed characterization of adsorbates on TMOs. Such systems are of broad technological importance in chemical catalysis.