This research project, supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program, focuses on the study of fundamentals of reactive collisions and soft-landing of polyatomic ions at surfaces. Professor Cooks and his students at Purdue University will contrast soft-landed ions at self-assembled monolayers with landing into vacuum-compatible liquid films. The functional groups available for reaction with impinging polyatomic ions at both of these surfaces will be varied to control the properties of the reaction products produced by these collisions. New multi-quadrupole instrumentation will be built and used in conjunction with existing multi-sector mass spectrometry instrumentation in pursuing this work. This project will provide a strong educational experience for students in the areas of mass spectrometry and surface science. The nature of chemical reactions that occur at surfaces involving projected polyatomic ion reactants remains poorly understood. Professor Cooks and his students at Purdue University will study the chemical reactions occurring between these polyatomic ions and a range of surfaces that exhibit diverse chemical properties. The long-term objective of this work is to develop new methods for the characterization of chemical reactions that occur at surfaces and to produce surfaces that have desired chemical features. The results of this work will have technological value in applications that depend on having surfaces with controlled chemical and physical properties.
