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Physical Chemistry of Interfaces and Nanomaterials, at the SPIE Annual Meeting, August 2006, San Diego, CA
The 2006 Annual Meeting of SPIE included the fifth year of the Symposium on Physical Chemistry of Interfaces and Nanomaterials. Over thirty five presentations were made in this year's symposium from scientists working in academic and government laboratories. They traveled from Europe, Asia, Australia as well as from within the United States and Canada to present their work. The topics covered included spectroscopy of nanoparticles and nanostructures, spectroscopy at surfaces and interfaces, and both the experimental and theoretical aspects of electron transfer at semiconductor surfaces. These studies ranged in their goals from fundamental research to analytical technique development to enhancement of conversion efficiencies in solar cells. Manifest in all of these presentations, however, was a search for an understanding of the physical aspects of interfaces and nanomaterials.
The highlights of the Physical Chemistry of Interfaces and Nanomaterials V symposium included active and insightful discussions on the synthesis and photophysics of nanoparticles and nanoparticle arrays, on the capability and practice of surface spectroscopies. A unique group of speakers on the spectral sensitization on semiconductors was assembled in this symposium in a day long series of presentations and discussions on ultrafast electron transfer, both its measurement and its theoretical basis.
The papers collected in the proceedings volume give an overview of the conference, and provide a ready summary of the state of research in the physical chemistry of interfaces and nanomaterials. Attendance at the sessions averaged thirty scientists over the three day period, ranging in number from fifteen to seventy in any particular session.
We were pleased that so many able and talented scientists were able to participate in this symposium. We gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the SPIE, Solar Hydrogen LLC, ChemMotif, Inc., Coherent (Germany), Bruker Optics GmbH, Spectra-Physics and the Petroleum Research Fund administered by the American Chemical Society.
Through the sponsorship of the PRF, a sizable number of foreign speakers were able to attend the conference. This included the following scientists:
Professor M. Tachiya of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan gave a presentation entitled ”Stochastic approach to exciton dynamics in nanoparticles and nanotubes.” The exciton population in these nanoparticle is very small and fluctuations in the number are comparable to the average number. The conventional deterministic approach to reactivity of excitons that considers only the average density of excitons is not sufficient to describe the reaction kinetics and a stochastic approach must be taken.
Professor P. Hess of the Ruprecht-Karls- University in Heidelberg, Germany made a presentation on the “Study of silicon-oxide interfaces and self-assembled monolayers by FTIR spectroscopy and IR-UV ellipsometry.” This was part of the special session on state-of-the-art surface sciences. The particular object of research is the hydrogen termination of wet chemically prepared silicon surfaces at submonolayer sensitivity.
Professor Yuxiang. Weng of the Institute of Physics, Beijing, China spoke on “A transient molecular probe for characterizing the surface properties of TiO2 nanoparticle in colloidal solution.” This was continuation of spectroscopic second harmonic generation studies that he had previously made at single crystal surfaces.
Dr. Jacques E. Moser of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland spoke on “Dynamics of light-induced interfacial electron transfer in the dye-sensitization of nanocrystalline oxide semiconductors.” He reported on mechanisms for electron transfer to nanocrystalline electrodes from excited Ru chromophores, which involves singlet and triplet state participation. A comprehensive model for the injection/recombination process was presented.
Professor F. Willig of the Hahn-Meitner Institute, Germany, talked on the “Dynamics of electron injection from the excited state of anchored molecules into semiconductors.” Willig and his collaborators reported on the use of Two Photon Photoemission Spectroscopy (2PPE) to determine the yields of electron transfer from chromophores to solids as well as the energy distribution of the injected electrons in the conduction band of the solid. The process was described with versions of the latest models of electron transfer that account for vibronic subcomponents in the energy distribution of the excited chromophore.
