December 2025 Sutton Family Research Impact Award Winner, Assistant Professor Rachael Farber
The Department of Chemistry congratulates Assistant Professor Rachael Farber on receiving the December 2025 Sutton Family Research Impact Award!
The Sutton Award is a monthly competition among chemistry faculty. Every month, the Chemistry Department Chair and Associate Chairs review the peer-reviewed papers published by chemistry faculty from the three previous months to select a winner. The recipient receives a $500 cash prize and is featured on the departmental website.
For a full list of winners, visit our Sutton Family Research Impact Award webpage.
Structural and Electronic Properties of Benzyl Isothiocyanate Films
By H. H. Hirushan, Darya M. Moiny, Adithya Sadanandan, Lily S. Tackett, N. Dissanayake, Lindsey N. Penland, Dmitry Ovchinnikov, Qunfei Zhou, and Rachael G. Farber
Langmuir 2025, 41, 47, 32023-32030. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.langmuir.5c04664
Benzyl isothiocyanate (BITC) is an aromatic thiolate that exhibits antimicrobial effects, shows promise as an anti-virulence compound, and can be encapsulated in nanoparticles for drug delivery. Despite the use of BITC in the condensed phase for biological applications, little structural or electronic information is understood for BITC films, nor are the optimal parameters for forming well-ordered BITC self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on gold surfaces clearly defined. This work features a multimodal approach for understanding the ideal incubation parameters for BITC, the structure of BITC SAMs, and the electronic properties of BITC SAMs. Using amplitude-modulated atomic force microscopy (AM-AFM) under ambient conditions, we rapidly screened BITC SAMs following various preparation protocols. Optimal BITC SAMs, marked by low surface roughness and long-range surface structure corresponding to the presence of BITC SAMs, formed following the incubation of Au(111)/mica for at least 65 hr in a 20 mM ethanolic BITC solution under ambient conditions. AM-AFM findings were corroborated with ultra-high vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy (UHV STM/STS) analysis, confirming the formation of striped domains of BITC across the Au(111) surface. The density of states measured by STS indicate significant hybridization of electronic states in the BITC and the Au(111) support. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations verified the experimentally observed packing structure for BITC/Au(111) and revealed large work function attenuation following the adsorption of BITC on Au(111) surfaces. The combination of STS and DFT builds a complete picture of the electronic interactions between BITC and the underlying Au surface. Overall, this work shows the validity of using AM-AFM to, rapidly and with high precision, characterize complex thin film surfaces for subsequent analysis using STM/STS and highlight the unique structural and electronic properties of BITC films when used in the condensed phase.
