With the advent of synchrotron light sources around the world,
photoemission spectra has become an important tool in understanding the
local
environment of atoms in solids, liquids and individual molecules. In
particular X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) is used to excite
electrons from core levels of molecules. Using XPS data, one can obtain
detailed information about surface reconstructions, molecular structure,
adsorption and defects. This branch of our research revolves around close
collaboration with experimentalists from abroad. Our goal is to interpret
experimental findings using atomic and electronic description of the
systems studied.This project is done in collaboration with researchers from SISSA/ISAS and Elettra Synchrotron Light Laboratory in Trieste, Italy. Our approach combines experimental data with density functional theory in an attempt to identify atomistic arrangements corresponding to spectroscopic lines observed in the experiment.
We are currently working on identifying X-ray photoemission spectra from C60 on metal surfaces(Picture above). For a previous study, see also ...
Hydrogen has gained much importance in the recent years as a potential clean and environmetal friendly energy source. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has put forward energy program that sets goals for creating hydrogen-storage systems with certain gravimetric, volumetric ratios and temperature ranges for operation. Although it is possible to achieve these goals under high pressure and cryogenic temperatures, these methods are inappropriate and too costly to be useful in real-life applications such as transportation. For this reason solid state materials and nanostructures have gained a lot of importance recently in the search for potentials storage systems
Together with the group of Professor Şakir Erkoç here at METU, we focus on nanostructure and molecular materials as possible storage systems. Our goal is to identify which systems have potential to achieve the DOE goals by studying their storage capacity under ambient conditions. Since temperature and pressure effects are highly important in characterizing the practicability of these systems, we use thermodynamics to study our systems.