Vincent Smentkowski is a Surface Chemist/Surface Analyst in the Chemistry & Chemical Engineering technology organization at GE Global Research and he’ll be co-chairing the 33rd Symposium on Applied Surface Analysis next month. GE Reports spoke with Vincent about his work in Surface Chemistry, what it means, why it’s important, and the big topics that will be discussed at this year’s meeting.

GE Reports: What is applied surface science?

Vincent Smentkowski: Surface science is the study of what’s happening on the topmost layer of any material. So traditionally, in the academic world, people are looking at very fundamental systems: a hydrogen molecule on a single crystal metal substrate. So in an ideal system you can get fundamental information. You can start understanding reaction mechanisms, the way a molecule specifically binds to and reacts with the material it’s being exposed to. A lot of times we don’t have the luxury of doing very sequential step-by-step fabrication with pristine materials. We’re looking at real samples, and that’s how the “applied” came into the name of the division.

GER: This is nanoscale science?

VS: It’s nanoscale and micron scale depending on the problem being addressed

GER: You’re looking at the interface between two surfaces, so it might be solid/solid, solid/liquid, solid/gas, gas/liquid, all of those?

VS: Gas/liquid isn’t that prevalent, but there is a large emphasis on solid/solid and solid gas. When you take two solids and put them together, what actually winds up happening at that interface is important. New techniques are being developed to look at solid/liquid interfaces – this is an area that is booming right now.

GER: What’s your role in Research and Development at GE?

VS: Our charter here at the Research Center is to do the research and development for the next generation of advanced products. Every set of products has a whole slew of challenges that they’re trying to overcome. Making things with a greater lifespan, lowering the cost of fabrication, making things better for the environment — these are common themes that cut across all the future generations of products.

Ninety percent of what we do is proactive, but we do get samples from each of the GE businesses, and that’s probably about 10 percent of the work — real samples that walk through the door that could be drastically different than anything we’ve analyzed before. An example, taken from the literature is delamination of paint from a car bumper – that is a real problem and a system where applied surface analysis can often provide answers. Or we’ll have to look at what happens with ice or rain or air hitting the surface of the parts of a jet engine, or in a turbine.

GER: What applications does your work have for new GE products?

VS: You name it and we’ve probably looked at it in the past few years. We’re doing a lot of work with micro electromechanical systems (MEMS). And we’re doing a good bit of work with x-ray detector platforms. And we’re doing a lot of work at the research center here in New York, and with our partner Primestar, in developing thin-film cadmium zinc telluride solar panels. We have also analyzed real hair samples to see how silicone based conditioners coat the hair fibers.

GER: Tell us about the 2011 symposium coming up in April.

VS: This event is co-sponsored by the American Vacuum Society — and for the applied surface science division, this is the one annual meeting. It’s two-and-a-half days and it’s run in workshop format where you pretty much take everybody, put them in a room, lock the doors, and they interact.

GER: What are the participants going to be discussing this year?

VS: A big part of it will be new instrumentation. New data analysis methodology, that’s something that’s always been one of the main strongholds of the applied surface science division. Working in the industrial setting, I’m part of a small team of surface analysts. We have a group of five here at the research center, and for the technique that I am currently using there’s one other person that helps me here at the research center. But if I pull in the whole community, within the applied surface science division, that’s now 900 people. So it’s a much larger pool of resources that we have at our disposal. The applied surface science division strives to help each other out (as well as to challenge each other) we push the limits of our techniques and knowledge.

For a real-world example of applied surface analysis, check out Vincent’s blog post for the GE Global Research blog on the science of figure skating.

GER: Why do you chair sessions such as this and how/why is it important to GE?

VS: This is an exceptional yearly meeting, not only is it a great way to find out about state of the art instruments and data collection methods, it is also a great venue to meet pioneers in the field and have detailed scientific discussions with them. You have the chance to meet researchers that have authored papers that you have read. You also have a chance to catch up with people that you know form past meetings, previous jobs, and/or graduate school.

The discussions are a critical part of meetings such as this and for me, discussions have resulted in a number of very powerful scientific collaborations. I also feel very strongly that we [senior scientists] need to do as much as we can to help teach and educate students and the next generation of scientists. The bottom line is that we all need to help each other. The benefits to GE are numerous – helping to identify exceptional students which often times become new hires, identifying new/more efficient ways of getting answers for our colleagues, and helping our staff grow.

Vincent Smentkowski in the lab.