Research in the Minton Laboratory uses gas phase and gas-surface molecular beam scattering techniques and various surface analysis tools to understand in detail the interaction between fast atoms or molecules and surfaces.  At collision energies of many electron volts, non-equilibrium interactions become important and the initial gas-surface interactions may resemble gas-phase-like interactions.  Such interactions may control the outcome of processes such as materials growth, etching, materials degradation in space, and surface-chemistry modification.  The goals of our research are to understand fundamental gas phase and gas-surface interactions in the relatively unexplored regime of hyperthermal collision energies and to apply the knowledge gained to the solution of materials issues.

For more information about our group, please follow the links on the left.