PhD Thesis proposal form
Discipline
Physics
Doctoral School
EDOM
Study of the chemically induced formation of nanostructures at
metal surfaces: electronic and reactive properties
 Laboratory name and web site: ISMO, http://www.ismo.u-psud.fr
 PhD supervisor (contact person):
 Name: Laurent GUILLEMOT
 Position: Director of Research at CNRS
 email: laurent.guillemot@u-psud.fr
 Phone number: (33)(0)169157662
 Thesis proposal (max 1500 words):
Our activities focus on the study of the modifications induced at metal surfaces by the interaction
with reactive molecules, such as oxygen, water, etc and especially the induced formation of atomic or
molecular assemblies of nanometric size having peculiar electronic or reactive properties. Such
chemical reactivity at surfaces and particularly the structural change
it can give rise to, is of great interest for example in surface
catalysis or in the perspective of improvement of fuel cells.
This experimental PhD work will require using and developing our
surface science apparatus working under UHV conditions where
one finds a Variable Temperature Scanning Tunnelling Microscope
(VT-STM) as well as other more common techniques such as Auger
Electron Spectroscopy, Low Energy Electron Diffraction and
Electron spectroscopy under UV photon.
By combining scanning tunnelling microscopy and spectroscopy,
we want to probe possible nano-structure size effects on their
electronic structure taking advantage of the control one can have on
their mean size by tuning the dose of oxygen initially used for
STM topography: 80x80 nm2
oxydising the surface before dosing with water. We will also probe
An oxygen covered Cu(110)
the reactivity of these nano-objects with other molecules (H2, CO).
surface after reaction with
H2O displays a network of
We will exploit the possibility to produce nanostructures on Cu and
nanostructures,
Ni (110) surfaces that have a characteristic oxygen induced
reconstruction displaying a large scale periodic superstructure. As
we showed recently how to fine-tune the typical sizes of this superstructure, we intend to produce
networks of nanostructures with tuneable size and density.
A major fore coming project aims at using such nanostructured substrate as a template for adsorption
of bigger organic molecules in order to functionalise the surface (chemical or even biochemical
function, magnetic or optical function) with nanometric resolution.
 Publications of the laboratory in the field (max 5):
Nanostructure formation by reaction of H2O with pre-adsorbed O on a Ag(110) surface,
Surf. Sci. 601 (2007) 3268
Chirality induced by surface strain studied using scanning tunnelling microscope ,
Phys. Rev. B (R) 79 20 (2009) 201406
Strain engineering for tunable nano templates,
Surf. Sci. 604/21-22 (2010) 1894
Formation of a Chemisorbed Water-Hydroxyl Phase on Cu(110) Mediated by Surface Transport,
J. Phys. Chem. C, 2011, 115 (45) 22387
 Specific requirements to apply, if any: