Our research focuses on determining the electronic properties of surfaces, interfaces, ultrathin films and nanoscale structures using a number of experimental approaches. Our work spans a wide range of materials systems from simple metals to complex oxides. Current projects include studying fundamental aspects of organic molecule adsorption on crystalline oxide and metal surfaces for photovoltaics and organic electronics; probing the electronic structure and morphology of transition metal oxyfluorides for energy storage applications; investigating structure-reactivity relationships of gas-phase reactions catalized at nanofaceted surfaces; exploring the role of radiation-induced reactions in materials that are candidates for resists in extreme ultraviolet lithography; and exploring energy and momentum correlations between coincident pairs of photoemitted electrons.
We use a variety of techniques to perform these studies including high-resolution and angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, inverse photoemission spectroscopy using a newly developed grating spectrograph, the novel technique of Auger-photoelectron coincidence spectroscopy (APECS) with synchrotron radiation (which was developed in our labs), and a variety of scanning probe techniques including variable temperature STM and AFM.