In an international conference, The 10th International Symposium on Surface Science (ISSS-10), Dr. Youngwook Park won Young Researcher Prize for his poster on the control of single-molecule photoswitching, and Mr. Kyungmin Kim, who visited us last year, also won Student Prize for his poster on tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy measurements he conducted here. Their poster presentations were indeed remarkable. Congratulations, Youngwook and Kyungmin!

Our research on nano-optoelectronics has been published in Nature Communications. Plasmons, nanoscale confined light, are promising as triggers for photochemical reactions and optoelectronic devices in the single- or even sub-molecular level, but the precise control of them remains challenging. By subnanoscale positioning of a silver tip with plasmon resonance, we controlled a photoswitch of a single-anhydride-molecule/silicon-surface system where chemical bonding between molecular O atoms and surface Si atoms are ruptured and formed repeatably by the plasmons. What is the role of the silicon surface? What kind of molecules can be switched? How can we achieve a sustainable switch? We addressed these issues in the article, which should significantly contribute to future design and control of ultimately minitualized photodevices.

Max Halbauer won a poster prize at a seminar he attended (809. WE-Heraeus-Seminar, Bad Honnef). This is his first academic award, but I am confident that this is just the beginning of his many accomplishments! Congratulations, Max!

We organized a two-day workshop on “THz and SFG spectroscopy and related phenomena in Solid-State Physics and Surface Science.” We invited one full professor, four research assosiates, and four PhD students from the Institute for Solid State Physics (ISSP, the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan) and Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan) for a strong scientific exchange through the workshop and lab tours. We hope that their visit triggers further scientifc development of each other’s institutions!

Two PhD students, Aji from Charles University and Kyungmin from Osaka University, are staying our group to experiment on their individual samples.
We hope that both make good progress with us!