Scope

Electron-initiated chemical reactions play an important role in many areas of pure and applied science. This concerns very different fields including plasma processes, photochemistry on surfaces, tunnelling microscopy, lithography, and molecular processes in biosystems relevant for radiation damage or radiotherapy. Free electrons, tunnelling electrons, or photoelectrons at surfaces or in the condensed phase that frequently have energies below the ionisation threshold of the material with which they interact, play a key role in each of these processes.

The fundamental reactions can nowadays be studied on a molecular scale and can directly be followed (and eventually controlled) with high resolution in electron energy, spatial coordinate, and time. Experiments using monochromatic electron beams, for instance, induce specific reactions as a function of electron energy. In scanning tunnelling microscopy, the tunnelling electrons induce particular processes leading to site selective dissociation or desorption (single molecule engineering). Femto-second pump and probe laser experiments enable the time-resolved study of the dynamics of electrons. All these fields of pure and applied research strongly benefit from the advancement of knowledge obtained from fundamental studies on low-energy electron-molecule interactions.

The main objective of this seminar is to establish links between the different research communities being concerned with electron-initiated processes. Experts with technology-related background, from fundamental fields of physics and chemistry, as well as from radiation science will discuss current problems and challenges of their research and thus provide young researchers with a timely and interdisciplinary perspective of the field concerning processes driven by low-energy electron-molecule interactions.