Collaboration with Nathan Guisinger at Argonne National Lab
This project focuses on elucidation of the fundamental surface science of amino acids by comparing characterizations under carefully controlled conditions with those closer to “real-world” conditions. This project will lead to a deeper understanding of how small, prebiotic molecules interact with surfaces and participate in the emergence of biologically applicable precursors. On a fundamental level, this project will study how amino acid molecules interact and how those interactions correlate to biologically relevant structures like proteins. Importantly, the association of single-molecule studies performed on a high-end microscope (low temperature, high vacuum) with studies performed on a less-ideal microscope (room temperature, typical atmospheric pressure) is both novel and essential to a propagation of the findings to biologically relevant systems. Low-temperature, ultra-high vacuum, scanning tunneling microscopy (LT-UHV STM) will be used to capture exact molecular arrangements, which will then be coupled with liquid and electrochemical STM (EC-STM) to replicate biological conditions for model systems, like amino acids on metals. While single molecule studies are often performed at pristine conditions, it is rare that those studies are combined with the same systems in the “real-world.” Research outcomes will make significant contributions to our understanding of prebiotic molecules and the evolution of those molecules on metallic surfaces.