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The mission of the Laboratory for Surface Modification is to provide a focus for research in basic and applied studies of high technology surfaces and interfaces.
Seminars
LSM Searching for Senior Experimentalist
The Laboratory for Surface Modification has an opening for an experimental scientist with exceptional credentials for a faculty appointment at the full professor level.Please click here for a more detailed description of the position.
New State-of-the-Art XPS Facility at the LSM
The LSM is pleased to announce that it has expanded its suite of sophisticated surface analytical capabilities with the opening of a new, state-of-the-art X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy facility capable of determining surface and near-surface elemental and chemical composition with micon-scale lateral resolution and atomic-layer depth resolution. The facility greatly expands our ability to probe surfaces, interfaces, thin films and nanostructures of interest in a wide range of fields including microelectronics, novel photonics, molecular magnetics, nano-catalysis and biomaterials.
This million-dollar facility for research, education, and training, is comprised of two new instruments manufactured by Thermo Scientific and is housed in the NanoPhysics Laboratory, home of the LSM, on the Busch Campus. Major funding for this acquisition came from a combination of a National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation (NSF-MRI) grant, matching contributions from the central administration and the Institute for Advanced Materials, Devices and Nanotechnology (IAMDN), and a substantial contribution from the LSM itself. One instrument, the K-Alpha, is highly-automated with extremely user-friendly data acquisition and analysis software that is intended for high-quality sample analysis that may be run by the user on a routine basis. The second instrument, the ESCALab 250 Xi, is an extremely powerful tool designed for incisive fundamental studies of surfaces and thin films. The ESCALab is also equipped with additional analytical techniques including ultraviolet photoemission (UPS), ion scattering spectroscopy (ISS), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), as well as sample heating and cooling. This machine is directly attached to a separate ultrahigh vacuum sample preparation chamber that will enable the combination of in-situ surface modification and sample analysis.
The new facility will be the centerpiece of a cooperative relationship between the LSM and Thermo Scientific that will include scientific exchange and collaborations for research and education. The site will also be used for instrumentation demonstrations and instructional workshops.
For more information about these instruments can be found at the following link LSM XPS Facility. For training and access information, contact the LSM XPS Facility Coordinator, Ryan Thorpe (thorper@physics.rutgers.edu), the Director of the LSM, Prof. Robert Bartynski (bart@physics.rutgers.edu), or the LSM Administrative Assistant, Gwen Chupka (gwen@physics.rutgers.edu).
Activities
Highlights
March 8, 2013
The 27th Annual Symposium of the Laboratory for Surface Modification was held last Friday, March 8, 2013. A total of 20 contributed talks (15 by graduate student) and 28 posters (23 by graduate students) were presented. In addition there were Highlight Presentations by Prof. Vitaly Podzerov (Department Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers) entitled "Organic Single Crystal Electronics and Prof. Jingguang Chen (Chem Engineering, Columbia) entitled "Using Model Surfaces to Design Catalysts and Electrocatalyists." Please help us congratulate our own Matthew Brahlek who won the Theodore E. Madey Student Award for Best Oral Presentation with his talk entitled "Bulk-Insulating Bi2Se3 Thin Films and Decoupled Topological Surface States" describing work performed under the supervision of Prof. Seongshik Oh. The best student poster, entitled "Electronic and Catalytic Properties of Chemically Exfoliated Molybdenum Disulfide" was presented by Maryam Salehi of the Materials Sccience and Engineering Department, based on work performed under the supervision of Prof. Manish Chhowalla. The student awards consist of a certificate and a prize of $300.
We look forward to a similarly outstanding collection of student presentations at next year's Symposium.