Taleana Huff

Chernoff Hall, CHE411 (office)
Department of Chemistry
90 Bader Lane
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6

Long Term Goals

Two broad camps exist in nanomaterial manufacturing: top-down, where bulk materials are patterned into nanoscale structures, and bottoms-up, where functional macro-materials are assembled piece-by-piece from molecular or atomic building blocks. We aim to bridge these two strategies, targeting discovery of bottoms up material creation that can be slotted into mature top-down manufacturing processes – i.e. build a portfolio of atomically-precise coatings on industry-relevant surfaces (metals and Si) that open new semiconductor industry processing routes.

Short Term Approaches

To build this portfolio, our group focuses on measuring and understanding the fundamental “rules” that govern on-surface reactivity at the atomic-scale. We leverage:

• Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to measure physical assembly patterns and electronic characteristics.
• qPlus Atomic force microscopy (AFM) to delineate molecule properties like charge distribution, bond structure, chemical reactivity, and polarization.
• Angstrom-resolved tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) to capture molecule dynamic information like steric hinderances and molecule-molecule interactions.

By understanding these factors at the ultimate resolution limit, we can begin to use the rules to guide new material production or targeted reactivity. We also are interested in methods and capability development within AFM, STM, and TERS.