Abstract
Understanding the interactions between molecules and metal surfaces is of widespread importance in electrochemistry, sensing, medical imaging/targeting, molecular electronics and spintronics. Although many techniques have characterised the interfacial charge transfers, conflicting conclusions often arise from the poor surface sensitivity to the buried locations. An emerging tool for interfacial studies uses plasmonic junctions, which confine optical fields to the nanocavities (with volumes <50 nm3) creating a surface probe with enhanced sensitivity. The enabled imaging and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopies (SERS) are promising to reveal the charge transfer processes in-situ. Here, the works reported aim to provide not only a rapid detection of redox reactions at the few-molecule level with excellent signal-to-noise ratios for mechanistic studies, but also a vital intuition for utilising light-molecule-metal systems to control single-atom optical switches and optoelectronic devices.
Biography
Dr. Ivana Qianqi Lin is an Assistant Professor in Hybrid Materials for Opto-Electronics at University of Twente. She earned her Bachelor and Master’s degree in Chemistry, and PhD in Electrochemistry, both with Prof. Richard Compton from University of Oxford. She carried out postdoctoral research in NanoPhotonics with Prof. Jeremy Baumberg at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. She then worked as a Raman Spectroscopy Scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK Research and Innovation. Since 2022, she has been leading an independent research group at UTwente Department of Molecules and Materials with a research focus on in-situ opto-/spectro-electrochemistry to reveal complex interfacial processes, aiming to develop plasmonic materials for sustainable devices and reactors.
