Name: Tushar Suhasaria
Diploma / M.Sc degree: IIT Roorkee, India
(June 2011)

PhD Project: XUV Photochemistry in doped ice films on astrophysically relevant substrates

Abstract of Research Project

Ice substrates like H₂O and D₂O or maybe CH₄ will be doped with molecules like CO, NH₃, CO₂ and small PAH's like coronene, hexapericoronene and also some perylenes or pyrenes. And then photochemistry in such doped ice films over the substrates will be studied. Astrophysically relevant surfaces will be olivines, forsterite (Mg₂SiO₄) single crystals, graphite and graphene depending on the progress.

The ices will be illuminated with visible and UV light from a femtosecond laser source available in our laboratory, as well as extreme UV light available at a Free Electron Laser called FLASH in Hamburg. The prepared surfaces will be characterized by FT-IR spectroscopy and thermodesorption spectroscopy. Possible reaction products desorbing from the surface will be detected by time-of-flight mass spectroscopy.