Surfaces and Interfaces
Surfaces and Interfaces
Our passion is to uncover the physical, chemical, and electrochemical secrets that govern our life. We study materials in a molecular level to explain their macroscopic properties. In this respect, surfaces and interfaces play a major role and therefore assessing molecular structures and properties at interfaces between different phases are the core of our research activities. These interfaces include liquid/air, solid/air, liquid/liquid, and solid/liquid interfaces and are relevant in different fields such as atmospheric chemistry, biochemistry, catalysis, emulsions, and material degradation and corrosion, to just name a few.
We utilize linear and non-linear interactions of light with matter to explore the bulk and interfacial properties of different materials using ellipsometry, infrared, Raman, and UV-Vis spectroscopy as well as inherently surface sensitive spectroscopic tools, second harmonic generation spectroscopy (SHG) and sum frequency generation spectroscopy (SFG).
Projects:
- In situ investigations of structural changes of biomolecules at the interface and under mechanical stress (participating project in SPP 1934 DiSPBiotech)
- Novel emulsions and their interface characterization
- Surface functionalization, degradation, and corrosion
Group members:
Dr. Saman Hosseinpour (Group leader)
Vanessa Lautenbach (PhD student)