Olga Ovchinnikova Abstract:
The key to advancing energy materials and biological systems is to understand and control the structure and chemistry at interfaces. While much of the dynamic chemistry can be studied on macro-scale systems, there is a lack of means to localize chemical measurements and correlate them to nanoscale structure of the material. Through a unique merger of advanced scanning probe and ion microscopy with mass spectrometry techniques rooted in innovative data processing and control algorithms, we are now able to understand the interplay between chemical and physical functionality at the fundamental length scales using multimodal chemical imaging. This multimodal imaging transcends existing techniques by providing nanoscale structural imaging with simultaneous chemical analysis. Here, I will discuss how we have developed and used this capability to visualize dynamic material transformations at interfaces, to correlate these changes with chemical composition, and to distil key performance-centric material parameters. One exciting capability is that the AFM can be used to drive materials away from equilibrium at the nanoscale with highly localized electric fields. This allows field confinement effects on localized chemistry in materials to be locally probed, especially at interfaces. This in turn yields direct information on key energy related questions such as electron and ion motion distribution and transport at and between interfaces. Overall, I will focus on ways to unlock the mystery of active interface formation through intertwining data analytics, nanoscale elemental and molecular characterization, with imaging; to better grasp the physical properties of materials and the mechanistic physics-chemistry interplay behind their properties.
Bio:
Dr. Olga Ovchinnikova graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) with a B.S and M.S. degrees in physics. While at UTK where she was actively engaged in research in atomic physics and STEM outreach through the Society of Physics of Students (SPS). She received her PhD from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in Chemical Physics where her research focused on developing spatially resolved mass spectrometry based chemical imaging approaches supported by a Chemical Physics Fellowship. She was a postdoctoral research associate at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) where she worked on incorporating mass spectrometry chemical imaging with other imaging modalities. Currently she is an R&D scientist and the Chemical Imaging Team Lead at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences at ORNL. Her team focuses on investigating relationships between physical structure and chemical functionality at the nanoscale through a unique merger of advanced scanning probe and ion microscopy with mass spectrometry techniques rooted in innovative data processing and control algorithms, to understand the interplay between chemical and physical functionality at the fundamental length scales. Her work has generated multiple patents, and commercial licenses to industry and has been recognized by the Fowler-Marion Dissertation Award, UT-Battelle Early Career Award, UTK Research Foundation Patent Award, and the Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry Beynon Prize.