APPLIED PHYSICS GRADUATE PROGRAMJoint PhD Program Between Weinberg College and Mccormick School of Engineering

Research Interests

Surfaces and interfaces are ubiquitous in nature but notoriously difficult to study. The Geiger group develops nonlinear optical methods for studying surfaces and interfaces relevant to environmental, biophysical, and materials science applications. Numerous oscillators and amplifiers are available in our group for producing the most widely tunable ultrafast light fields in the Midwest and for probing liquid/solid and gas/solid interfaces with second harmonic and vibrational sum frequency generation. Program themes are: (1) metal ion speciation at aqueous/solid interfaces; (2) nonlinear optical studies of DNA; (3) interfacial chemistry in climate change; and (4) functionalized silicon surfaces for molecular electronics.

Selected Publications

“Aqueous Proton Transfer Across Single Layer Graphene,” Jennifer L. Achtyl, Raymond R. Unocic, Lijun Xu, Yu Cai, Muralikrishna Raju, Weiwei Zhang, Robert L. Sacci, Ivan V. Vlassiouk, Pasquale F. Fulvio, Panchapakesan Ganesh, David J. Wesolowski, Sheng Dai, Adri C. T. van Duin, Matthew Neurock, Franz M. Geiger, Nature Communications, 6, 6539 (2015).

“On Surface Order and Disorder of α-Pinene-Derived Secondary Organic Material,” Mona Shrestha, Yue Zhang, Mary Alice Upshur, Pengfei Liu, Sandra L. Blair, Hong-fei Wang, Sergey A. Nizkorodov, Regan J. Thomson, Scot T. Martin, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Phys. Chem. A, ASAP Article (2015)

“Direct Probes of 4 nm Diameter Gold Nanoparticles Interacting with Supported Lipid Bilayers,” Julianne M. Troiano, Laura L. Olenick, Thomas R. Kuech, Eric S. Melby, Dehong Hu, Samuel E. Lohse, Arielle C. Mensch, Merve Dogangun, Ariane M. Vartanian, Marco D. Torelli, Eseohi Ehimiaghe, Stephanie R. Walter, Li Fu, Christopher R. Anderton, Zihua Zhu, Hongfei Wang, Galya Orr, Catherine J. Murphy, Robert J. Hamers, Joel A. Pedersen, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Phys. Chem. C, 119, 534–546 (2015)

“On Surface Order and Disorder of α-Pinene-Derived Secondary Organic Material,” Mona Shrestha, Yue Zhang, Mary Alice Upshur, Pengfei Liu, Sandra L. Blair, Hong-fei Wang, Sergey A. Nizkorodov, Regan J. Thomson, Scot T. Martin, and Franz M.Geiger, J. Phys. Chem. A, 119, 1292-1302 (2015)

“Precipitates of Al(III), Sc(III), and La(III) at the Muscovite–Water Interface,” Sarah A. Saslow Gomez and Franz M. Geiger, J. Phys. Chem. A, 118, 10974–10981 (2014)

“Enhancing Graduate Student Communication to General Audiences through Blogging about Nanotechnology and Sustainability,” Lee M. Bishop, Ayesha S. Tillman, Franz M. Geiger, Christy L. Haynes, Rebecca D. Klaper, Catherine J. Murphy, Galya Orr, Joel A. Pedersen, Lizanne DeStefano, and Robert J. Hamers, J. Chem. Educ., 91, 1600–1605 (2014)

“Reduction in local ozone levels in urban Sao Paulo due to a shift from ethanol to gasoline use, ” Alberto Salvo and Franz M. Geiger, Nature Geoscience, 7, 450-458 (2014)

“Free Energy Relationships in the Electrical Double Layer over Single-Layer Graphene,” Jennifer L. Achtyl, Ivan V. Vlassiouk, Pasquale F. Fulvio, Shannon M. Mahurin, Sheng Dai, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 135, 979-981 (2013).

“In-Situ Probe of Gate Dielectric-Semiconductor Interfacial Order in Organic Transistors: Origin and Control of Large Performance Sensitivities,” Stephanie R. Walter, Jangdae Jun, Jonathan Emery, Sumit Kewalramani, Jonathan Hennek, Michael J. Bedzyk, Antonio Facchetti, Tobin J. Marks, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 134, 11726-11733 (2012).

“Identification of Binding Sites for Acetaldehyde Adsorption on Titania Nanorod Surfaces Using CIMS,” Daniel Finkelstein-Shapiro, Avram Buchbinder, Baiju Vijayan, Kaustava Bhattacharyya, Eric Weitz, Franz Geiger, and Kimberly A. Gray, Langmuir, 27, 14842-14848 (2011).

“Displacement of Hexanol by the Hexanoic Acid Overoxidation Product at Supported Palladium Nanoparticles under Cyclohexane Solution," Avram M. Buchbinder, Natalie A. Ray, Junling Lu, Richard P. Van Duyne, Peter C. Stair, Eric Weitz, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 133, 17816-17823 (2011).

“Specific and Nonspecific Metal Ion-Nucleotide Interactions at Aqueous/Solid Interfaces Functionalized with Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine Oligomers,” Joseph G. Holland, Jessica N. Malin, David S. Jordan, Esmeralda Morales, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 133, 2567-2570 (2011).

“Surface Amplified Ligand Disorder in CdSe Quantum Dots Determined by Electron and Coherent Vibrational Spectroscopy," Mattew T. Frederick, Jennifer L. Achtyl, Kathryn Knowles, Emily A. Weiss, and Franz M. Geiger
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 133, 7476-7481 (2011).

“When the solute becomes the solvent: Orientation, ordering, and structure of binary mixtures of 1-hexanol and cyclohexane over the (0001) alpha-alumina surface," Avram M. Buchbinder, Eric Weitz, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 132, 14661-14668 (2010).

“Phenylacetylene One-Dimensional Nanostructures on the Si(100)-2x1:H Surface," Michael R. Walsh, Stephanie R. Walter, Franz M. Geiger, and Mark C. Hersam, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 132, 3013-3019 (2010)

"Atmospheric Heterogeneous Stereochemistry," Grace Y. Stokes, Ehow H. Chen, Avram M. Buchbinder, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 131, 13733-13737 (2009).

"DNA at Aqueous/Solid Interfaces – Chirality-Based Detection via Second Harmonic Generation Activity," Faith C. Boman, Julianne M. Gibbs-Davis, Laurel M. Heckman, Brian R. Stepp, SonBinh T. Nguyen, and Franz M. Geiger, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 131, 844-848 (2009).