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Introducing Ulrike Diebold - Scanning Devilish Surfaces of Benign Materials

bridges vol. 15, Sept 2007 / Feature Articles

by Johannes Strobl

Ulrike Diebold

“Surfaces are how objects communicate with the outside world. If you form a surface you cut atomic bonds, and the atoms then don't know what to do. It is really hard to predict sometimes: A seemingly very simple volume of a material can change quite a bit on the surface,” Ulrike Diebold, professor and chair of the surface science group at Tulane University in New Orleans, explains what makes surfaces such fascinating and yet tricky entities. Wolfgang Pauli, famous Austrian-born physicist notorious for his cynical remarks, offered a less subtle assessment of surfaces: “God made solids, but surfaces were the work of the devil!”

Metal oxides surfaces – truly versatile materials

The scope of Tulane’s surface science group ranges from basic research, with the goal of understanding fundamental processes of surfaces, to very applied research.
Diebold is one of the leading experts in the investigation of metal oxide surfaces. The most widely studied of these – titanium dioxide (TiO₂), a remarkable material with a vast number of applications – has remained the core of Diebold's repertoire from the early days of her career. “I’ll make a bet that you’ve already had it in your mouth today,” Diebold takes me by surprise, and explains that TiO₂’s ability to reflect light particularly well makes it a widespread ingredient of everything that should be bright white – toothpastes for instance.

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