Atmospheric Surface-Science (A.S.S.) is a new research line funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and has been set out in the Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research – Atmospheric Aerosol Research (IMK-AAF) at KIT after three successful grants:
- Start-Up-Budget (STUB 2012) in 2012 from the competence field Earth and Environment, KIT for “building a super cooled SHG system and performing a feasibility study on water/ice-nucleation-agent interface”.
- Research grant (DFG, AB 604/1-1) in 2014 from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to study “Elementary processes of heterogeneous ice nucleation observed by nonlinear optical spectroscopy”.
- Research grant (DFG, AB 604/1-2) in 2017 from DFG to proceed with advanced studies on “Elementary processes of heterogeneous ice nucleation observed by nonlinear optical spectroscopy: The role of hydroxyl groups on the surfaces of mineral aerosol particles”
- Research grant (DFG, AB 604/3-1) in 2020 from DFG to study “Atmospheric photochemistry on the molecular level using nonlinear optical spectroscopy”
The aim of this research is to investigate atmospheric aerosol-cloud-climate interactions* on the molecular level using NLO spectroscopy.
* Atmospheric interactions of interest include, but are not limited to heterogeneous ice nucleation particle oxidation and photo-sensitization, secondary aerosol and biogenic particle formation, molecular composition-, phase-, acidity- and structure- changes …)