Dr. Wentao Chen

Dynamics of single atom catalysis in superfluid helium nanodroplets

Single-atom catalysts have recently emerged as a new type of catalysts which are comprised of one metal atom and has different catalytic properties compared to bulk-particle catalysts. The common way to form single-atom catalysts is to isolate a single metal atom on a supporting surface, which makes it difficult to characterize the catalytic activity of the single atom and separate the influence of the surface. Superfluid helium nanodroplets can be an ideal tool to form the isolated molecule-metal atom complexes by doping the reactant molecule and the metal atom successively. Specifically, we were able to form 1,8-octanediol- Au_n(n=0-2) complexes without a supporting surface by sequentially doping octanediol and a gold atom in helium droplets. After ionizing the complexes by electron impact and comparing the fragment, it has been found that the complexes with Au atoms prominently produced more CHO⁺ in this dissociative reaction than the complexes without Au. With the help of femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy and photoelectron-photoion coincidence methods, it possible to study the real-time dynamics of the octanediol-Aun complex during the reaction.

Supervisor: Frank Stienkemeier