Chief Scientist Laboratories Surface and Interface Science Laboratory
Chief Scientist: Yousoo Kim (D.Eng.)
Research Summary

Our research focuses on describing details of the energy transport and conversion at the solid surfaces and interfaces in the nanoscale regime. In order to understand their basic mechanism at a single molecule/atom level, we carry out combined study of density functional theory calculation and scanning probe microscopy/spectroscopy on the well-defined solid surfaces under ultra-high vacuum condition. Part of our research is directed toward investigation of single-molecule chemistry on various solid surfaces. Another important part of our research focuses on self-assembled organic thin films aiming at understanding their microscopic structure and controlling their electronic properties. In addition, we also investigate energy conversion between electrons and photons of the nanometer scale materials.
Main Research Fields
- Chemistry
Related Research Fields
- Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering
- Engineering
- Surface science
- Physical chemistry
- Condensed matter physics
Keywords
- Surface
- Interface
- Scanning probe microscope
- Single-molecule spectroscopy
- nanotechnology
Selected Publications
- 1.H. Imada, K. Miwa, M. Imai-Imada, S. Kawahara, K. Kimura, and Y. Kim.:
"Single molecule investigation of energy dynamics in a coupled plasmon-exciton system"
Phys. Rev. Lett. 119 (2017) 013901, 1-6. - 2.E. Kazuma, J. Jung, H. Ueba, M. Trenary, and Y. Kim.:
"Direct pathway to molecular photodissociation on metal surfaces using visible light"
J. Am. Chem. Soc. 139 (2017) 3115-3121. - 3.H. J. Yang, M. Trenary, M. Kawai, and Y. Kim.:
"Single-Molecule Dynamics in the Presence of Strong Intermolecular Interactions"
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 7 (2016) 4369-4373. - 4.H. Imada, K. Miwa, M. Imai-Imada, S. Kawahara, K. Kimura, and Y. Kim.:
"Real-space investigation of energy transfer in heterogeneous molecular dimers"
Nature 538 (2016) 364-367 - 5.K. Miwa, H. Imada, S. Kawahara, and Y. Kim.:
"Effects of molecule-insulator interaction on geometric property of a single phthalocyanine molecule adsorbed on an ultrathin NaCl film"
Phys. Rev. B 93 (2016) 165419, 1-8. - 6.J.-H. Kim, J. Jung, Y. S. Yang, J.-C. Ribierre, C. Adachi, M. Kawai, T. Fukushima, and Y. Kim.:
"Seamless growth of a supramolecular carpet"
Nature Commun. 7 (2016) 10653, 1-9. - 7.H. W. Kim, S. Takemoto, E. Minamitani, T. Okada, T. Takami, K. Motobayashi, M. Trenary, M. Kawai, N. Kobayashi, and Y. Kim.:
"Electron confinement in graphene nanoislands with free-electron-like energy dispersion"
J. Phys. Chem. C 120 (2016) 345-349. - 8.H. Lim, J. Jung, R. S. Ruoff, and Y. Kim.:
"Structurally Driven One-dimensional Electron Confinement in Sub-5-nm Graphene Nanowrinkles"
Nature Commun. 6 (2015) 8601, 1-6. - 9.E. Kazuma, M. Han, J. Jung, J. Oh, T. Seki, and Y. Kim.:
"Elucidation of isomerization pathways of a single azobenzene derivative using an STM"
J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 6 (2015) 4239-4243. - 10.T. Minato, S. Kajita, C.-L. Pang, N. Asao, Y. Yamamoto, T. Nakayama, M. Kawai, and Y. Kim.:
"Tunneling desorption of atomic hydrogen on the surface of titanium dioxide"
ACS Nano 9 (2015) 6837-6842
Recent Research Results
Apr. 28, 2017
Interfering with grapheneApr. 15, 2016
Catalysts hitting the right overtonesDec. 12, 2014
Lining up for molecular memory devicesJul. 11, 2014
Oxygen extends graphene’s reachApr. 19, 2010
How to split a water molecule
Annual research report
Related Links
Lab Members
Principal investigator
- Yousoo Kim
- Chief Scientist
Core members
- Norihiko Hayazawa
- Senior Research Scientist
- Yasuyuki Yokota
- Senior Research Scientist
- Hiroshi Imada
- Research Scientist
- Emiko Kazuma
- Research Scientist
- Shunji Yamamoto
- Special Postdoctoral Researcher
- Rafael Jaculbia
- Special Postdoctoral Researcher
- Chi Zhang
- Special Postdoctoral Researcher
- Francesca Celine Inserto Catalan
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Raymond Albert Wong
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Misun Hong
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Songpol Chaunchaiyakul
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Miyabi Imai
- Junior Research Associate
- Bo Yang
- International Program Associate
- Maria Herminia Marallag Balgos
- International Program Associate
- Minhui Lee
- International Program Associate
- Kensuke Kimura
- Student Trainee
- Inhae Zoh
- Intern
- Yoshiko Shimizu
- Technical Staff II
- Chikako Kuramochi
- Assistant
- Yuki Hasegawa
- Research Part-time Worker I
Contact Information
S304 Chemistry and Materials Physics Building,
2-1 Hirosawa,
Wako, Saitama
351-0198, Japan
Tel: +81-(0)48-467-4073
Fax: +81-(0)48-467-1945
Email: ykim [at] riken.jp