Surface and Interface Chemistry - From Fundamentals to Devices

表面和界面的重要性以及发生在那里的化学反应对我们的生活至关重要。发生在细胞膜上的界面化学对细胞的正常功能和健康负责。我们呼吸的空气质量在某种程度上是由悬浮在大气中的气溶胶颗粒表面发生的复杂化学反应决定的。我们日常生活中所依赖的许多技术都是基于半导体表面和薄膜上发生的化学反应。工业依赖于表面的物理和化学过程来提高质量，确保我们的基础设施和消耗品的附着力、保护和耐腐蚀性。我们理解、控制和优化表面和界面化学的能力已经显著改善了我们的生活，包括在健康、信息和通信技术、污染减排、能源生产、材料加工和更广泛的财富创造方面的好处。我们的研究计划的主要目标是：(1)为表面和界面化学的理解和知识提供有意义的贡献；(2)解决界面科学的基本问题及其对新技术、材料和工艺发展的影响。在这里，我们建议开发新的方法来研究表面和界面的光。这些新方法将使我们能够获得关于表面的新信息，驻留在那里的分子，以及对它们的化学影响。我们还将使用光和其他具有原子尺度分辨率的工具来帮助理解有机电子材料的基本特性。这些材料越来越多地用于新技术，但我们对它们的基本了解是有限的。更好地了解它们的基本属性将有助于我们提高它们的性能，以及使用它们的设备和技术的性能。我们将进行实验，以帮助我们了解我们在实验室开发的一种新的太阳能技术。这种新的太阳能技术的发展可能为以化石燃料为基础的电力生产及其对环境和健康的负面影响提供具有成本效益的替代品。最后，我们开发了一种新的化学方法，可以从溶液中沉积高质量的单晶金属。这种化学在许多领域都有重要的意义，包括能源生产技术、纳米技术和催化。***我们在实验室培养的年轻科学家现在可以在加拿大和国外的大学、政府实验室、工业和初创公司的研发、技术、教学和行政职位上找到。

The importance of surfaces and interfaces and the chemistry that occurs there is central to our lives. The interface chemistry that occurs in the membranes of our cells is responsible for proper cell function and health. The quality of the air that we breathe is, in part, determined by the complex chemistry that occurs on the surfaces of aerosol particles suspended in the atmosphere. Much of the technology that we rely on in our daily lives is based the chemistry that occurs on semiconductor surfaces and thin films. Industry relies on physical and chemical processes on surfaces to improve quality, ensure adhesion, protection, and corrosion resistance of our infrastructure and consumables. Our ability to understand, control and optimize surface and interface chemistry has resulted in significant improvements in our lives, including benefits in health, information and communication technologies, pollution abatement, energy production, materials processing, and wealth creation more generally. The primary objectives of our research program are (i) to provide meaningful contributions to the understanding and knowledge of surface and interface chemistry and (ii) to address fundamental issues in interface science and their impact on the development of new technologies, materials and processes.***Here, we propose to develop new methods to investigate surfaces and interfaces with light. These new methods will allow us to obtain new information about surfaces, the molecules that reside there, and the effects on their chemistry. We will also use light and other tools with atomic scale resolution to help understand the fundamental properties of organic electronic materials. These materials are increasingly being used in new technologies, but our fundamental understanding of them is limited. A better understanding of their underlying properties will help us to improve their performance, and the performance of devices and technologies that use them. We will conduct experiments that help us to understand a new solar energy technology that we have developed in our laboratory. Development of this new solar technology may offer cost effective alternatives to fossil fuel-based electricity production, and its negative environmental and health consequences. Finally, we have developed new chemistry that enables the deposition of high quality single crystal metals from solution. This chemistry has important implications in many areas including energy generation technologies, nanotechnology and catalysis.***The young scientists that we train in our labs can now be found in R&D, technical, teaching, and administrative positions in universities, government labs, industries and start-up companies in Canada and abroad.