Photo-induced Surface Chemistry on Catalytic Nanoclusters

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Catalyst technologies account for over $1 trillion of revenue in the U.S. economy, and applications range from medicines and alternative energy fuel cells to the development of new and innovative clothing fibres. The underlying chemistry and physics that dictates how and why these catalytic processes occur, however, remains largely unknown for many catalytic systems. Understanding these catalytic systems on the smallest level is a goal of modern chemistry, since studying the constituent pieces may lead to a better understanding of bulk materials. By investigating nanoclusters of catalytic systems we can essentially monitor the evolution of their chemical and physical properties as we build up to bulk material an atom at a time. Of course, in many instances nanoclusters have been found to exhibit extreme and unexpected chemical and physical properties quite dissimilar from both the bulk phase and the atomic constituents. Discovering and applying these properties is a major theme in the field of nanotechnology.