Thiel Research Group

About Us

    Surfaces and interfaces rule! They rule many everyday physical phenomena such as corrosion and lubrication. They also rule the world of micro- and nano-science and technology, because as objects become smaller, the ratio of area-to-volume increases until the object essentially has no volume, only area. In our research, our goal is to gain a basic, atomic- or molecular-scale understanding of model systems and then extrapolate that knowledge to real systems. In constructing a model system, we consider two components: The surface, and its environment. The surface is usually chosen such that the surface atoms have long-range order, and the environment is ultrahigh vacuum, which allows us to control reaction between a surface and its environment very precisely. We are experimentalists. Our primary technique is scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), complemented by temperature programmed desorption (TPD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

    As of October 2015, there are 2 major projects underway in our group. These address important issues in fundamental and applied surface chemistry/physics, and hold great promise for new advances. They are funded separately by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). They are:

      Nucleation, growth, and intercalation of metal nanostructures at, and beneath, graphitic surfaces (DOE); and

      Adsorbate-metal complexes that form spontaneously on metal surfaces, and their effect on metal nanostructures (NSF).

More detail on each is available at the “Research” tab. Our work is enriched greatly by strategic collaborations with other outstanding research groups around the world, both theoretical and experimental.

News

New publication: "Identification of a AgS₂ complex on Ag(110)" was published December 2019, by Scientific Reports

Congratulations to Peter Spurgeon for Successfully defending his Ph.D.! Thesis title: "Investigations of sulfur-silver interactions and mass transport on silver and gold surfaces".

Pat Thiel has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences!

New publication: "Characteristics of sulfur atoms adsorbed on Ag(100), Ag(110), and Ag(111)as probed with scanning tunneling microscopy: experiment and theory"

was published May 10th, 2019 by Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

Congratulations to Ann Lii-Rosales for Successfully defending her Ph.D.! Thesis title: "Encapsulation of metal nanoparticles near the graphite surface: From a survey of metals to revealing a general phenomenon".

New publication: "Squeezed Nanocrystals: Equilibrium Configuration of Metal Clusters Embedded Beneath the Surface of a Layered Material" was published March 11th, 2019 by Nanoscale

New publication: "Energetics of Cu adsorption and intercalation at graphite step edges" was published March 11th, 2019 by Physical Review B

New publication: "Surface energies, adhesion energies, and exfoliation energies relevant to copper-graphene and copper-graphite systems" was published January 24th, 2019 by Surface Science

New publication: "Reverse-Engineering of Graphene on Metal Surfaces: A Case Study of Embedded Ruthenium" was published October 9th, 2018 by Nanotechnology

Welcome our newest group member, graduate student Michael Manley who joined March 2018!

New publication: "Formation of Multilater Cu Islands Embedded beneath the Surface of Graphite: Characterization and Fundamental Insights" was published February 6th, 2018 by Journal of Physical Chemistry C

New publication: "Defect-mediated, thermally-activated encapsulation of metals at the surface pf graphite" was published November 4th, 2017 by Carbon

New publication: "Sulfur Atoms Adsorbed on Cu(100) at Low Coverage: Characterization and Stability against Complexation" was published August 22nd, 2017 by Journal of Physical Chemistry B

New publication: "Formation of dysprosium carbide on the graphite (0001) surface" was published July 12th, 2017 by Physical Review Materials

New publication: "Thermally activated diffusion of copper into amorphous carbon" was published July 11th, 2017 by Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A

New publication: "Adsorption of dysprosium on the graphite (0001) surface: Nucleation and growth at 300 K" was published March 29th, 2016 by Journal of Chemical Physics

Congratulations to Peter Spurgeon for passing his preliminary exam

Welcome our newest member Dapeng Jing as a staff scientist to our group who joined in Fall 2016

Yu Lim Kim has left the Thiel group and has joined the Gordon group here at Iowa State University

Mark Wallingford is now working for Mantis as a service engineer. We thank him for all his hard work in our group over the past years

Congratulations to Ann Lii for passing her preliminary exam

 New publication: "Formation of Two-Dimensional Copper Selenide on Cu(111) at Very Low Selenium Coverage" was published May 9th, 2016 by ChemPhysChem

Congratulations to Holly Walen for being named the 2016 Karas Award winner for Outstanding Dissertation at Iowa State. She was also an honorable mention winner for the Zaffarano Prize for superior performance in publishable research.

Congratulations to Emma Kwolek for Successfully defending her Ph.D.! Thesis title: "Surface Anaylsis of Model Systems: From a metal-graphite interface to an intermetallic catalyst".

Congratulations to Ann Lii and Peter Spurgeon for winning an ISU Teaching Excellence Award, and to Holly Walen for winning an ISU Research Excellence Award

Congratulations to Ann Lii for being a Cotton-Uphouse finalist

Congratulations to Holly Walen for Successfully defending her Ph.D.! Thesis title: "Sulfur-induced structural motifs on copper and gold surfaces".

New publication:  "Identification of Au-S complexes on Au(100)" was published January 14th, 2016 by Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

New publication: "Interaction of oxygen with (111) surface of NaAu2" was published December 23rd, 2015 by Surface Science

Welcome our newest group member, graduate student Yu Lim Kim who joined January 2016!

Congratulations to Holly Walen for winning a National AVS Graduate Research Award, and the Surface Science Division Mort Traum Award.

Welcome to Yinghui Zhou, a visiting scientist from Xiamen University in China! Yinghui will be working on the DOE-funded project pertaining to nucleation, growth, and intercalation of metal nanostructures at, and beneath, graphitic surfaces.

New publication: "Long-range displacive reconstruction of Au(110) triggered by low coverage of sulfur" was published August 27th, 2015 by Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

New publication: "Growth morphology and properties of metals on graphene" was published July 31st, 2015 by Progress in Surface Science.

New publication: "Self-organization of S adatoms on Au(111): Rt.3R30 rows at low coverage" was published July 6th, 2015 by Journal of Chemical Physics.

New publication: "Reconstruction of steps on the Cu(111) surface induced by sulfur" was published May 21st, 2015 by Journal of Chemical Physics.

Congratulations to Holly Walen for winning a 2015 Teaching Excellence Award from the Chemistry Department at Iowa State!

New publication: "Preface: special topic on supramolecular self-assembly at surfaces" was published March 14th, 2015 by The Journal of Chemical Physics.

New publication: "Cu₂S₃ complex on Cu(111) as a candidate for mass transport enhancement" was published January 22nd, 2015 by Physical Review B.

New publication: "The (111) Surface of NaAu₂: Structure, Composition, and Stability" was published December 17th, 2014 by Inorganic Chemistry.

New publication: "Determining whether metals nucleate homogeneously on graphite: A case study with copper" was published November 5th, 2014 by Physical Review B.

Welcome to our newest group members, graduate students Ann Lii and Peter Spurgeon who joined Nov. 2014!

New publication: "Transition metals on the (0001) surface of graphite: Fundamental aspects of adsorption, diffusion, and morphology" was published September 2nd, 2014 by Progress in Surface Science.

Congratulations to David Appy for successfully defending his Ph.D.! Thesis title: "Nucleation and growth of metals on carbon surfaces". He will begin a Lecturer position at the end of August for the Department of Chemistry at Iowa State University.

The Thiel group members are so very proud to congratulate Prof. Thiel for being named the 2014 winner of the AVS Medard W. Welch Award for "seminal contributions to the understanding of quasicrystalline surfaces and thin-film nucleation and growth"! Please refer to this news release from the Ames Laboratory.

New publication: "Search for the Structure of a Sulfur-Induced Reconstruction on Cu(111)" was published August 7th, 2014 by The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

Congratulations to Emma Kwolek for winning a 2014 Teaching Excellence Award, and to Holly Walen for winning the Dr. Ching Ching Chiu Fellowship for Women Doctoral Chemistry Students! Both awards are from the Department of Chemistry at Iowa State.

New publication: "Structure of the clean Gd₅Ge₄(010) surface" was published October 28th, 2013 by Journal of Physics Condensed Matter.

New publication: "Analytic formulations for one-dimensional decay of rectangular homoepitaxial islands during coarsening on anisotropic fcc (110) surfaces" was published October 24th, 2013 by Physical Review B.

Congratulations to Dahai Shao for successfully defending his Ph.D.! Thesis title: "Surface-Supported Ag Islands Stabilized by a Quantum Size Effect: Their Interaction with Small Molecules Relevant to Ethylene Epoxidation."

New publication: "Intermetallic NaAu₂ as a heterogeneous catalyst for low temperature CO oxidation" was published June 11, 2013 by Journal of the American Chemical Society.

New publication: "Growth of fcc(111) Dy multi-height islands on 6H-SiC(0001) graphene" was published May 15, 2013 by Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.

New publication: "Anisotropic coarsening: One-dimensional decay of Ag islands on Ag(110)" was published April 17, 2013 by Physical Review B.

New publication: "Communication: Structure, formation and equilibration of ensembles of Ag-S complexes on an Ag surface" was published February 15, 2013 by Journal of Chemical Physics.

New publication: "Surface Characterization of Clean Gd₅Ge₄(010)" MRS Proceedings 1517 (2013).

News Archive