Surface Science Queensland

I am a career surface scientist. Many of the successful theories describing solid state matter are not applicable to surfaces, because these theories assume that the solid extends for a very great distance in every spatial direction, relative to an individual atom in the material. At the surface, this is not true. This can give rise to interesting an unusual phenomena, and provides a constant challenge to further our understanding.

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Education:

Postgrad:     PhD (Physics) - Queen's University at Kingston, Canada (2006)

                     MSc  (Physics) - Queen's University at Kingston, Canada (2001)

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Experience: 

I have nearly 20 years experience in surface science, including vacuum technologies, instrument design, spectroscopy and microscopy. My present research employs as many of these techniques as possible to uncover the structure-function relationship of novel materials.

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During my MSc and PhD I designed and built an inverse photoemission spectrometer, which at the time represented the state of the art in the technique. Inverse photoemission is a type of electronic density measurement whereby electrons from a low-energy source are injected into the unoccupied states of a surface, and the light emitted during their capture is collected and analysed.

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Later I became an avid user of scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), a technique whereby a sharp probe is rastered across a surface to build up an image of the sample’s topographic and electronic features. STM allows the user to “see” individual atoms and molecules, and is a particularly beguiling measurement, albeit sometimes tedious and not particularly fast compared to electron microscopies.

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I am also heavily reliant on photoelectron spectroscopy (PES), both in the laboratory (XPS/UPS) and using synchrotron light (SRPES). The synchrotron offers advantages in terms of tunability and flux, and permits experiments such as near-edge x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (NEXAFS), which is a related technique for studying the electronic energy levels and orientation of adsorbed surface species.

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Publications summary:

Vasseur G, Fagot-Revurat Y, Sicot M, Kierren B, Moreau L, Malterre D, Cardenas L, Galeotti G, Lipton-Duffin JA, Rosei F, other a, (2016) Quasi one-dimensional band dispersion and surface metallization in long-range ordered polymeric wires, Nature Communications p1-9

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Dinca LE, MacLeod JM, Lipton-Duffin JA, Fu C, Ma D, Perepichka DF, Rosei F, (2015) Tailoring the reaction path in the on-surface chemistry of thienoacenes, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C p22432-22438

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Dinca LE, De Marchi F, MacLeod J, Lipton-Duffin J, Gatti R, Perepichka DF, Rosei F, (2015) Pentacene on Ni(111): Room-temperature molecular packing and temperature-activated conversion to graphene, Nanoscale p3263-3269

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De Marchi F, Cui D, Lipton-Duffin J, Santato C, MacLeod J, Rosei F, (2015) Self-assembly of indole-2-carboxylic acid at graphite and gold surfaces, The Journal of Chemical Physics p1-9

 

MacLeod J, Lipton-Duffin J, Cui D, De Feyter S, Rosei F, (2015) Substrate effects in the supramolecular assembly of 1,3,5-benzene tricarboxylic acid on graphite and graphene, Langmuir: the ACS journal of surfaces and colloids p7016-7024

 

Gatti R, MacLeod J, Lipton-Duffin J, Moiseev AG, Perepichka DF, Rosei F, (2014) Substrate, molecular structure, and solvent effects in 2D self-assembly via hydrogen and halogen nonding, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C p25505-25516

 

Lipton-Duffin J, MacLeod J, Vondracek M, Prince KC, Rosei R, Rosei F, (2014) Thermal evolution of the submonolayer near-surface alloy of ZnPd on Pd(111), Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics p4764-4770

 

MacLeod J, Lipton-Duffin J, Baraldi A, Rosei R, Rosei F, (2013) Surface structure of Pd(111) with less than half a monolayer of Zn, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics p12488-12494

 

Dinca LE, Fu C, MacLeod J, Lipton-Duffin J, Brusso JL, Szakacs CE, Ma D, Perepichka DF, Rosei F, (2013) Unprecedented transformation of tetrathienoanthracene into pentacene on Ni(111), ACS Nano p1652-1657

 

Lipton-Duffin J, MacLeod J, McLean AB, (2006) Detection of a Fermi-level crossing in Si(557)-Au with inverse photoemission, Physical Review B (Condensed Matter and Materials Physics) p1-8

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