The utilization and organization of molecular species is an important issue for advancing nanoscale science and underpins the development of novel functional materials. To this end we explore molecular bonding and assembly at well-defined homogenous surfaces, textured templates, nanoelectrodes and 2D-sheet layers. The developed bottom-up fabrication protocols employ tailored building blocks and exploit both supramolecular engineering and on-surface covalent synthesis. Structure formation, chemical conversions, electronic and other characteristics are addressed by a multitechnique experimental approach, whereby scanning probe microscopy provides molecular-level insights that are frequently rationalised with the help of computational modeling. We work toward a rationale for the control of single molecular units and the design of nanoarchitectures with distinct functional properties.

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Bio

After studying physics at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilians University J. Barth received his doctorate in physical chemistry with G. Ertl at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (1992). He was an IBM Postdoctoral Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, and spent over a decade at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where he received the venia legendi. Prior to his engagement as a TUM full professor in 2007, he was a Canada Research Chair at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Research activities center on physicochemical phenomena at interfaces and molecular nanoscience.