This award will provide supplementary support to enable Dr. Greg Swain of Auburn University to conduct collaborative research with Dr. Kingo Itaya for twelve months at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan. They will apply in situ scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques to characterize the solid/solution interface of gold and carbon fiber electrode surfaces. Despite the fact that they are strongly influenced by the microstructure present at the surface, solid electrodes are usually studied in a high vacuum. Such a technique does not accurately measure the physical and chemical interface properties of the solid electrode surfaces in solutions as they relate to electron transfer, adsorption, corrosion and catalysis. In order to provide insight into the nature of these processes, Swain and Itaya will conduct an in situ analysis of single crystal gold electrodes in ultraclean solutions using STM and AFM. Dr. Itaya's expertise in the use of in situ STM to image mono and polycrystalline electrode surfaces will complement Swain's experience in electrochemical surface spectroscopy and the necessary pretreatment of carbonaceous electrodes, and will facilitate the understanding of the interaction between ions and solvents at the solid/solution interface.
