Development of our electrochemical characterization facility

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This proposal is to request funds for the development of our electrochemical characterization facility. This includes two potentiostat/galvanostat instruments that were both damaged due to electrical problems in my laboratory. These pieces of equipment are essential to support our research efforts in the area of modified electrodes. All of our research deals with low dimensionality systems (molecular layers and thin films) and the importance of changes in material properties due to the creation or presence of interfaces. Our research program objectives are 1) to gain understanding of the organization of molecules (and atoms) at surfaces using various chemical and physical surface modification techniques such as electrodeposition, self-assembly and by covalent attachment on Si-H surfaces; 2) to study relevant properties of these films using our expertise in scanning probe methods and electrochemistry; and 3) ultimately to understand the formation of these materials and to relate their structures and morphology to their electrochemical/electronic, catalytic or/and magnetic properties. The work involves a variety of systems such as electrodeposited crystalline bismuth thin films as magnetic sensors; metal phthalocyanines as model catalysts and the chemical modification of nanoporous titanium dioxide using dye and ternary alloy semiconductor films for applications in low costs solar cell devices. All these projects and a few others rely heavily on our electrochemical characterization facility.