We are interested in fundamental, down-to-the-atom understanding of surface processes and properties. We explore molecular and supramolecular chemical reactions occurring on surfaces, when surfaces are functionalised or nanomaterials form and their related physicochemical properties (chemical reactivity, electronic & magnetic properties). Developments in the fields of organic chemistry, biology and physics, as well as intriguing theoretical predictions constitute our main source of inspiration.

 

We target (i) mechanistic elucidation of on-surface reactions, including some novel reactions discovered by ourselves, (ii) discovery and development of atomically precise functional materials (iii) establishing principles of form-function relationships in the context of surface nanostructures.


On-going projects focus on modular assembly with functional building blocks such as carbenes, hydroxamic acids, catecholates, and porphyrins. We investigate

1.     bottom-up assembly of functional metal-organic networks from the single molecule ligation to the 3D network,
2.     organic chemistry on solid surfaces,
3.     molecular dynamics confined in 2D nanopores,
4.     supramolecular self-assembly on surfaces.