Research Assistant Professor
Center for Catalysis and Surface Science,
Northwestern Univesity, Evanston, IL 60208
Mailing Address:
Chemistry Division,
Argonne National Laboratory,
Argonne, IL 60439
Phone: 630-252-6899
(1) Characterizing inorganic materials and energy and environmental catalysts and catalysis at Argonne National Laboratory by in-situ multi-wavelength (from deep UV to Near IR) Raman spectroscopy system that was recently setup. (2) Showed that the Mo=O and W=O bonds associated with the cation vacancies where oxygen atoms are doubly-bonded in complex vanadomolybdate and vanadotungstate structure cause the high frequency Raman bands above >1000 cm-1 (in collaboration with K. Poeppelmeier group).
(3) Showed that the Raman signaturee of nanocrystalline manganese oxide produced biologically closely resembles the 3x3-tunneled todorokite mineral (in collaboration with J.-F. Gaillard group).
(4) Detected a specific dioxygen binding species to the surface iron of enzyme-mimicking zeolite catalyst (in collaboration with W.M.H. Sachtler group)
(5) Designed and built an in-situ fluidized bed cell which minimize possible thermal- and photo-decomposition due to the focused laser beam. The cell allows us to obtain Raman data for solid powder samples under a wide range of temperatures (77 K to ~1000 K) and pressures (high vacuum to 1 atm).
2. Postdoctoral researcher in the field of molecular astrophysics/astrochemistry: Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. Research Advisor: Richard J. Saykally.
(1) Directly detected IR emission from excited gas phase polyclic aromatic hydrocarbon cations under space-mimicking condition for the first time, and compared it to the ubiquitous unidentified IR emission bands (UIRs) from space sponsored by NASA.
(2) Designed and built in-situ cryogenic ion beam reflectron system and coupled it to the liquid helium-cooled Berkeley single-photon IR emission spectrometer.
3. Ph. D. & M. Sc. in Physical Chemistry: Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, republic of. Thesis Advisor: Kwan Kim.
(1) Detected weak chemical interactions between benzene and alkali metals at 9 K by matrix isolation FT-IR spectroscopy. And, performed ab-initio calculations, which supported the experimental results and suggested the optimized structure of molecular complexes.
(2) Discriminated between the IR bands of monomeric and oligomeric organic species at 9 K and elucidated uncertain vibrational assignments of benzene by matrix isolation FT-IR spectroscopy.
(3) Detected strong interactions between transition metals and catalytic support oxide by Raman spectroscopy.