| Description | Professor Ashfold is the U.K.'s leading experimental chemical physicist. The distinction of his research has been recognised by his receiving all the main awards of the Royal Society of Chemistry at the appropriate stage of his career. His beautiful work on the dynamics of photon-molecule interaactions, for example, on the dissociation of H2O, HCN, CH4 and a number of small ions, and on the mode-specific fragmentation of hetero-aromatic molecules, has placed him at the international forefront in a highly competitive area. His experiments, using state-of-the-art laser techniques, are elelgant, innovative and definitive and the results are invariably accompanied by clear physical insights into the underlying molecular dynamics. He has also performed distinguished research on the gas phase and gas-surface chemistry underpinning thin film formation - notably in the areas of diamond chemical vapour deposition and pulsed laser deposition of, for example, zinc oxide. Here also, his group have applied novel techniques giving detailed insight into carbon cycling and the important growth species. |