Professor Warren Lawrance

Executive Dean, Faculty of Science & Engineering
Professor of Chemistry

Contact Details

Key Responsibilities

• Member of many University Committees ex officio, including:
• Vice-Chancellor’s Committee
• Academic Senate
• Infrastructure Committee
• Chair of Faculty Board
• Line management responsibility for the Faculty, reporting to the Vice-Chancellor.

Teaching

• General Physical Chemistry, kinetics, spectroscopy

PhD Student Research

• Heather Mackenzie-Ross (PhD student): Alignment and orientation effects in collision-induced vibrational energy transfer.
• Rebecca Moulds (PhD student): Experimental and Computational studies of van der Waals molecules.
• Kate Nixon (PhD student): Electron momentum spectroscopy of solids and van der Waals molecules.

Research Interests

• Energy partitioning in van der Waals molecule dissociation. van der Waals molecules are weakly bonded species containing two or more molecules/atoms held together by weak intermolecular forces. The study of these species provides insight into solvent-solute and solvent-solvent interactions in condensed phases, the conformation adopted by macromolecules and large bio molecules, and molecular self- assembly, among others.
  
  This project studies the dissociation of van der Waals molecules, in particular the partitioning of the energy into vibrational, rotational and translational motion of the products. The experiments to date have focussed on aromatic, single ring compounds, specifically benzene and p-difluorobenzene, bonded to rare gases and simple polyatomics (primarily acetylene and water). The internal energy distribution in the fragments is monitored using dispersed fluorescence and either laser induced fluorescence or resonance enhanced multiphoton ionisation. The translational energies are monitored using velocity map imaging. Recently, experiments have begun examining small radical species such as NO.
  
  
• Reaction of Size- Selected Metal Nanostructures (with Prof Jani Matisons, Prof Kevin Wainwright and Dr Jamie Quinton (Flinders) and Dr Greg Metha (Adelaide)). The catalytic behaviour of metal clusters changes dramatically with cluster size when there are only a few to tens of atoms in the cluster. This project involves depositing size- selected metal clusters on surfaces and investigating their catalytic properties. The goal is to identify clusters with specific catalytic properties as a target for production via chemical synthesis. The second aspect of the project involves the synthesis of complexes containing a specific number of metal atoms with the goal of depositing specific sized clusters on surfaces from solution.
  
  
• Electron scattering cross sections from radicals (with Dr Michael Brunger, Prof. Peter Teubner (Flinders) and Prof. Steven Buckman (ANU)). A knowledge of the cross sections for electron scattering from radicals can be an important input to modelling the processes occuring in plasmas such as those used in etching semiconductors. Despite this, there are almost no data concerning these cross sections. The aim of this project is to combine the expertise of a number of researchers to undetake such measurements. A dedicated apparatus ha been constructed for this purpose.
  
  
• Electron momentum spectroscopy of van der Waals molecules (with Dr Michael Brunger (Flinders)). As we have noted in (i) above, van der Waals molecules are weakly bonded species whose study provides insight into solvent-solute and solvent-solvent interactions in condensed phases. Electron momentum spectroscopy (EMS) is a method for measuring directly the electronic wavefunction of a species in momentum space. The technique is most sensitive for slow electrons, i.e. those furthest from the nucleus. These are the electrons involved in the van der Waals bond. A dedicated apparatus has been constructed to allow the study of van der Waals bonds using EMS. The apparatus is currently being tested.

Recent Publications

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