Walther Schwarzacher (40 mins talk + 10 mins questions)
School of Chemistry, University of Bristol
Title: Surface roughness and single-molecule transport measurements
Abstract: I shall present the results of two recent studies in Bristol. The surface roughness of electrodeposited thin films is important for applications as well as for understanding the deposition process. We introduce a simple method of characterizing surface roughness evolution based on slope analysis and illustrate it for electrodeposited Cu. Single-molecule transport measurements under electrochemical control can contribute greatly to understanding metal-molecule interfaces as well as being important for molecular electronics. However, to date measurements have largely been restricted to Au. We show that Ni-single-molecule-Ni junctions have particularly interesting properties.
Biography: Walther Schwarzacher obtained his PhD in surface physics from the University of Cambridge in 1990. Following a short period working as a guest researcher at NIST Gaithersburg in the USA he was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Bristol in 1991, where he is currently a professor. His research interests include electrodeposition, magnetic nanoparticles and their applications and electron transport through single molecules. He has published over 100 papers and supervised more than 20 PhD students.