Flinders University College of Science and Engineering researchers have scooped the cover story of a leading US chemistry journal.

The researchers – Dr Ruby Sims, Professors Sarah Harmer and Jamie Quinton from Flinders Microscopy and MicroAnalysis and Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology – in conjunction with Professor Kohei Uosaki and Hidenori Noguchi from Japan’s National Institute of Materials, have collaborated on an article used as a journal cover in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

This research reports outcomes of Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy (which uses UV, visible and infrared light) measurements to study molecular self-assembly mechanisms – in other words to determine how certain organo-silane molecules arrange themselves on surfaces, says Professor Quinton.

“This work is so exciting for us as it has increases our understanding of the complex ways in which these materials behave when they cure. This will lead to new and better materials,” he says.

The research was conducted by Dr Sims during her PhD, during which she spent 12 months at the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) on a prestigious International Cooperative Graduate School Fellowship as part of the Institute for NanoScale Science and Technology’s ongoing partnership with NIMS.

Professor Uosaki is a Flinders Physics PhD and DSc alumus, honorary doctorate and celebrated alumnist, and the Director of MANA (International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics) and GREEN (Global Research Center for Environment and Energy Based on Nanomaterials Science).

Sims, RA, Noguchi, H, Harmer, SL, Quinton, JS & Uosaki, K 2021, ‘Probing Molecular Mechanisms during the Oscillatory Adsorption of Propyl Chain Functionalized Organosilane Films with Sum Frequency Generation Spectroscopy‘, The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, vol. 125, no. 7, pp. 4383–92  DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c09715