Abstract: In my talk, I’ll cover two topics in the general area of tunneling microscopy: looking at surface dynamics of glasses on a millisecond to hour scale, and excited state dynamics of nanomaterials on the sub-picosecond to nanosecond scale, both with sub-nm resolution. The technique of ​“SMA-STM” works by shining modulated light on a sample and detecting the resulting change in electron density with an STM tip, which also enhances the evanescent light wave that excites the sample. I’ll show that we can build energy landscapes of glass surfaces and characterize the collective units that underly glassy dynamics. I’ll also discuss results on excited state dynamics of nanomaterials such as quantum dots, carbon dots and carbon nanotubes, including recent results to look at energy and charge migration with sub-picosecond time resolution.

Bio: Martin Gruebele obtained his BS in 1984 and his PhD in 1988 at UC Berkeley, did a postdoc with Ahmed Zewail at Caltech, and then joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1992.  There, he is currently the James R. Eiszner Chair in Chemistry, Professor of Physics, of Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, in the Center for Advanced Studies, and in the Carle-Illinois College of Medicine.