Our research is concerned broadly with the chemistry of materials. Of significant interest in our work are studies of processes occurring at surfaces and interfaces, the properties of complex forms of matter, and the fabrication of functional devices. These studies make frequent use of state of the art methods of spectroscopic analysis and physical characterization. Our studies also make extensive use of state of the art methods and instrumentation for imaging complex chemical systems. Such microscopies also provide useful adjunct methods for characterizing and manipulating nanoscale materials. We continue to be centrally involved in developing analytical protocols to elucidate the nature of adsorbate and interfacial structure as well as characterize their dynamics using methods of vibrational spectroscopy. This work impacts areas as diverse as the design of flat panel displays and the fabrication of chemical sensors and microelectronic arrays.

          Our studies explore many systems with an interest in defining novel mechanisms for preparing useful materials structures—whether nanoscale or more macroscopic—from molecular and other precursors.  This work is integrated with a larger set of research interests directed at the development of novel methods of micro/nanoscale fabrication and molecular patterning. This work is developing functional device structures for microelectronics, optics, chemical sensing, and detection—ones derived from a wide range of materials spanning metals, semiconductors, polymers, biological materials, and ultimately cells. These studies involve many points of collaborative interactions with our colleagues here and at other institutions.

          Our current work also emphasizes studies of complexity and emergent properties in condensed matter systems. In this research we seek to elucidate the most fundamental bases that underlay the properties of complex matter and molecular assemblies. The phase behaviors of complex organic adsorbates at surfaces and interfaces, especially self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) are areas of great interest to us in this regard. This work has broad impacts, as the self-assembly of adsorbates at phase boundaries underlies a broad range of current problems in technology. In such work, we examine thin polymer films that are useful for microfabrication and bioanalytical measurements, biomimetic structures, microporous membranes, and SAMs supported on a variety of materials for application as platforms in studies of important interfacial phenomena. We use a variety of powerful probes that allow us to establish the characteristics of the local molecular structures present in such materials and use that information to develop predictive structure-property correlations of complex systems that extend out to macroscopic length scales.