Description
The
liquid-solid interface plays an essential role in many phenomena encountered in
biological, chemical, and physical processes relevant to both fundamental and
applied science. However, study of the hydrated materials such corroded
interfaces or hydrated proteins is challenging as liquid water is generally
incompatible with many analytical imaging techniques that require high to
ultrahigh vacuum conditions. One strategy to probe hydrated materials is to
cryogenically freeze the liquid into solid form to preserve local ionic
chemistry gradients and surface composition within a solid structure, making it
more amendable to vacuum-based analyses such as Atom Probe Tomography (APT).
Contributors
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Dr. Daniel Perea
Danny Perea is a senior staff scientist at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory national user facility at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from Northwestern University, where he established the application of APT to quantitatively map 3D dopant impurity distributions in low-dimensional semiconductor nanostructures. His current interests at PNNL include developing unique cryogenic-based techniques and protocols to pioneer the use of APT to probe the composition and structure of environmentally sensitive materials related to energy and the environment.