Physics Professor Jeff Terry will give a talk on photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) for advanced surface and material analysis at PITTCON, the Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy, on Thursday, March 12.

PES has become one of the most-used techniques to understand materials physics and chemistry. With PES, researchers can measure the kinetic energy of electrons emitted by the sample after it is excited by UV or X-ray photons. This measured quantity is related to the binding energy of the electrons in the material and depends upon the electronic structure of the material. Terry’s talk will focus on using PES to elucidate problems of reaction chemistry with examples including chromatography, semiconductor devices, and the nuclear industry.

Terry will speak as part of a symposium on advanced surface/material analysis, with emphasis on low energy ion scattering (LEIS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), the use of synchrotron radiation, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).