Gareth S. Parkinson - Associate Professor - Surface Physics Group

Web links –> ORCID Google Scholar Profile - Current h-index = 27

Downloads –> 2020-06-23_gareth_parkinson_website_cv.pdf – gareth_s_parkinson_full_publication_list.pdf

• Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Wien
  Wiedner Hauptstr. 8-10/134, 1040 Wien, Austria
• Phone: (+43 1) 58801 - 13473
• email: [email address: lastname @ this server · enable javascript to see it]

• Associate Professor, TU Wien, 2017-
• Assistant Professor, TU Wien, 2015-2017
• Universitätsassisstent, TU Wien, 2010-2015
• Postdoc at Tulane University, USA, 2009-2010 (Supervisor: U. Diebold)
• Postdoc at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 2007-2009 (Supervisor: B.D. Kay)
• PhD in Physics from Warwick University, 2007 (Supervisor: D.P. Woodruff)

My group at the TU Wien. BACK ROW FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: David Rath (Masters student, designing IRAS setup), Matthias Meier, (postdoc DFT calculations) Zdenek Jakub (PhD student, single atom catalysis), Me, Florian Kraushofer (PhD student, hematite surfaces), Manuel Ulreich (Masters, single atom catalysis), Claus Kovacs (Masters student, building electrochemical flow cell). FRONT ROW. Jiri Pavelec (Postdoc, designer in chief), Nico Resch (Masters, single atom catalysis on hematite), Francesca Mirabella (Postdoc, oxide-liquid interfaces)

My research group utilizes a comprehensive surface science approach to study the physics and chemistry of metal oxide surfaces, and so-called “single-atom” catalysts. Recently, we have focused on iron oxide surfaces, in particular the (001) of Magnetite (Fe3O4) and the (012) surface of Hematite (Fe2O3). Going forward, we aim to combine our successful STM and nc-AFM work with data from our new state-of-the-art surface chemistry setup, which allows for quantitative TPD using molecular beams, XPS, UPS, IRAS, LEED and LEIS, all on the same sample, at the same time! In addition, we are currently moving towards realistic conditions using UHV-interfaced high-pressure and electrochemical cells.

See Project description –> phd_advert.pdf

Please contact me at parkinson@iap.tuwien.ac.at

Zdenek successfully defended his PhD on June 17th in an online exam. He will say a couple of months as a postdoc to help train new students and to finish up a few things…

After a really tough selection process I was delighted to learn that I have been awarded a “consolidator” grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Basically, this gives us 2 million euros over 5 years to look at single-atom systems, particularly with a view to developing better electrocatalysts. I take this as evidence that the EU is not so bad after all and Britain should remain

I'm currently in Japan to give a talk about single-atom catalysis at the 2019 Materials Research Meeting in Yokohama. Fantastic country, people, and science. I am very impressed so far.

Our latest paper in Angewandte Chemie has been featured on the TU Wien homepage, and was picked up by the press here in Austria

TU Wien article in English Der Standard article in German

Really happy to have 3 new papers accepted this week

1. Local Structure and Coordination Define Adsorption in a Model Ir₁/Fe₃O₄ Single-Atom Catalyst - Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2019

2. Understanding Heterolytic H2 Cleavage and Water-Assisted Hydrogen Spillover on Fe3O4(001)-Supported Single Palladium Atoms - ACS Catalysis

3. The Influence of Local Defects on the Dynamics of O-H Bond Breaking and Formation on a Magnetite Surface - The Journal of Physical Chemistry C

I have joined the organizing committee for the focus session “Fundamentals of Heterogeneous Catalysis” to be held at AVS 67. Thanks to Ashleigh Barber (and Dan Killelea) for the invitation to participate in the hugely successful symposium.

I'm delighted to win the best lecture award for 2019 for fundamentals of physics 1! Thanks to all who nominated and voted

Honored to be involved. Thanks to all those who voted for me.

Jan Hulva successfully defended his PhD thesis “Studies of Adsorption on Fe3O4(001) Using Molecular Beams” on May 29th with Prof. Hajo Freund of the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin as the external examiner. We wish him well for the future and are sad so see him leave.

Very proud to report that we published a new paper in JPCL that is the result of a new collaboration with the group of eminent surface-scientist Hajo Freund. J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2019, 10, pp 2487–2492, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b00773 Hajo has also generously agreed to join us as the opponent for my PhD student Jan Hulva, who will defend May 29th. Exciting times!

Really pleased to announce that Jiri Pavelec has defended his thesis. Jiri designed and built our surface chemistry chamber and has be instrumental to a lot of the work going on in my group over the last few years. Thankfully, he is going to stay on a little while as a postdoc…

Excited to have received an invitation to speak at the MRM meeting in Yokohama, Japan in December. I was never in Japan, and it's somewhere I've always wanted to visit. Also, the symposium title “Local atomic structure Analysis of the active site in functional materials” sounds right up my street.

My views on why surface science experiments are vital to unravel single atom catalysis can be found here –> Catalysis Letters Perspective

Thanks very much to Hajo Freund for the invitation to write it!

Florian and I attended the Gordon Research Conference on Chemical Reactions at surfaces where I gave an invited lecture about partially-dissociated water agglomerates on iron oxide surfaces. This was my first Gordon conference and I really enjoyed the format. It certainly wont be the last. Thanks very much to Christoph Wöhl and Manos Mavrakakis for the invitation!

After the conference I visited Phil Christopher's group at UC Santa Barbara to discuss potential a collaboration on single atom catalysis research. Thanks Phil for your hospitality!

We have a new paper about partially-dissociated water dimers forming at the surface of hematite –> ACS Energy Lett., 2019, 4 (2), pp 390–396

Our long awaited Bruker 80v spectrometer arrived today and seems to be in good working order. Jiri and David are very excited to add IRAS to our TPD chamber capabilities…

I will serve as the head of the surface science division of the Austrian Physical Society for the next two years, and was recently elected to serve on the board of the CPG (Austrian Physical chemistry society).

June 2018 - Last week I was honored to present the first talk of the conference and try to explain how we are using surface science methods to important insights into the mechanisms underlying single atom catalysis. Thank you to conference organiser Jun Li (pictured) for giving me this platform

November 2017 - I was awarded the Gaede Prize for 2018 at the DPG Spring Meeting in Berlin. I also organized a focus session together with Joachim Paier (Helmholz Universität)on Metal-Oxide Structure and Surface Chemistry at the meeting, which was very interesting. Thanks to all who participated!

November 2017 - I was honored to receive the Kardinal-Innitzer-Förderungspreise from Kardinal Schönborn at the Archdiocese in Vienna. A really great day out for me and my family.

Thanks to all who voted for me!

Also, congratulations to my friend and former boss Zdenek Dohnalek, who was made an AVS fellow

July 2017 - Officially granted tenure at the TU Wien. Really happy to finally make my stay in Vienna permanent. The Surface Science Group here is a fantastic place to be at the moment. Great people, great science!

My review of Iron Oxide Surface Science, also my habilitation thesis, was recently published in Surface Science Reports. It can be downloaded from the following link:

Iron Oxide Surfaces Review

In June 2015 I was awarded the FWF START prize, which grants me 1.2 million euros for my research for the next 6 years. The idea is to use the Fe3O4(001) surface as a platform to study the fundamental mechanisms of single atom catalysis. Better get on with it then!

Download publication list: gareth_s_parkinson_full_publication_list.pdf

In total I have published 60 peer reviewed papers. Some of my favorites from my time in Vienna are listed below:

Gareth S. Parkinson “Iron Oxide Surfaces”Surface Science Reports 71 (2016) 272, DOI: 10.1016/j.surfrep.2016.02.001

“Water agglomerates on Fe3O4(001)”PNAS (2018)

“Dual role of CO in the stability of sub-nano Pt clusters at the Fe3O4(001) surface”PNAS 113, (2016) 8921

“Subsurface cation vacancy stabilization of the magnetite (001) surface”Science 346, 1215 (2014)

“Cluster Nucleation and Growth from a Highly Supersaturated Adatom Phase: Silver on Magnetite” ACS Nano 8, 7531 (2014)

“Carbon monoxide-induced adatom sintering in a Pd–Fe3O4 model catalyst” Nature Materials 12, 724 (2013)

“Ordered Array of Single Adatoms with Remarkable Thermal Stability: Au/Fe3O4(001).” Physical Review Letters 108, 216103 (2012)