U.S.-Germany Cooperative Research: Surface Diffusion - The Role of Defect Sites

该奖项支持匹兹堡大学John Yates博士团队的一到两名研究生与马尔堡菲利普斯大学物理系的Dieter Fick合作。这次合作将研究表面化学中最重要的一个方面，即确定被吸附物种在表面上迁移的动力学。要研究的模型系统是锂原子在具有周期性原子台阶阵列的Ru单晶表面上的扩散。目的是确定表面步骤和共吸附相互作用在锂原子迁移的活化势垒上的作用。扩散测量将在德国使用一种新的核磁共振技术进行，该技术已显示出对正在研究的现象的卓越敏感性。

This award supports one or two graduate students from Dr. John Yates's group at the University of Pittsburgh to collaborate with Dieter Fick of the Department of Physics at the Phillips University in Marburg. The collaboration will study one of the most important aspects of surface chemistry having to do with the determination of the kinetics of migration of adsorbed species across surfaces. The model system to be studied is the diffusion of lithium atoms on ruthenium single-crystal surfaces having periodic arrays of atomic steps. The goal is to determine the role of surface steps and co-adsorbate interactions on the activation barrier for lithium atom migration. The diffusion measurement will take place in Germany using a novel NMR technique, which has shown superior sensitivity to the phenomena under study.