2015 EAS Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry

Prof. Emile A. Schweikert Texas A&M University
Prof. Emile A. Schweikert
Texas A&M University

Emile A. Schweikert is Professor of Chemistry at Texas A&M University and Director of the University’s Center for Chemical Characterization & Analysis. His research in secondary ion mass spectrometry, SIMS, focuses on advancing the fundamentals of the technique and on innovations in instrumentation and methodology. He has pioneered the bombardment of surfaces with clusters instead of atomic ions and demonstrated SIMS performance enhanced by several orders of magnitude. He has since shown that nanoparticles e.g. C60, Au400 impacting at hypervelocity generate still higher emission of surface ions. An intriguing consequence is the ability to observe ion and electron emission from single “nanoprojectile” impacts. Under these conditions the ejecta are from a nanoscopic volume (10-15 nm in diameter, ≤10 nm in depth). They originate from co-located molecules, thus enabling molecular surface analysis at the nanoscale. These studies required the assembly of unique custom-designed instrumentation, provided new insight into massive cluster-solid interactions and have led to numerous applications in surface analysis. Recent efforts are dealing with the characterization of individual nano-objects and 2D materials. Schweikert has authored and co-authored over 260 papers on surface and ultratrace analysis. To date he has served as thesis/dissertation advisor or mentor to 88 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. His work has been recognized with the award of the George Hevesy Medal, the Texas A&M University Excellence in Innovation Award and most recently the Eastern Analytical Symposium Award for Outstanding Achievements in Mass Spectrometry.