Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

The detection of monolayers of a variety of molecules located at surfaces and interfaces is of importance in fields such as biomolecular detection, molecular recognition and corrosion processes. Interfacial phenomena are known to play a critical role in the absorption of monolayers that undergo an orientation in a specific fashion at the surface or the interface. Such knowledge is therefore very important to understand how a biomolecule interacts with a surface, what its secondary structure(s) is (are), how two complementary molecules bind, or what the intermediate species present during a corrosion process are. In this context, vibrational spectroscopy and microscopy offer several advantages such as (i) the characterization of molecular structures through the measurement of the molecular vibrational fingerprint of the system (ii) a monolayer sensitivity when combined with polarization modulation spectroscopy (iii) the possibility to determine the orientation of molecules at surfaces as well as their chirality (iv) its combination with optical microscopy that offers a spatial resolution of about 10-20 microns (v) its non-destructive nature. In the research projects developed by the four co-applicants, all the specificities of infrared spectroscopy and microscopic imaging are critical points to address specific issues about the fundamental knowledge of a large variety of molecular systems.