Biography
Dr. Vaida received his B.Sc. in Physics from West University of Timişoara. He obtained an ERASMUS scholarship to perform research at Free University of Berlin during his master degree program. After receiving the MS. in Physics, Dr. Vaida obtained a DAAD fellowship for doctoral studies at the Institute of Surface Chemistry and Catalysis at Ulm University, where he earned his PhD degree. Subsequently, he carried out research as a postdoctoral research scholar in the Chemistry Department at University of California, Berkeley. He began as Assistant Professor at University of Central Florida in September 2016.
Research Areas
Dr. Vaida uses a state-of-the-art femtosecond laser system in conjunction with a high harmonics generation source and a monochromator to produce femtosecond laser pulses in the extreme ultraviolet spectral range. These laser pulses are employed to track the charge carrier dynamics in novel 2D nanostructured materials with time resolution, surface sensitivity, and element specificity. Moreover, pump-probe femtosecond laser mass spectrometry technique in conjunction with extreme ultraviolet soft ionization at the surface is used to study the ultrafast dynamics of molecules attached at solid surfaces such as bond breaking and bond making, with time‑, mass-, and energy-resolution. The main goal of this research is to fully monitor and understand the electron and molecular dynamics at the surface of various nanostructured materials that can be used to construct highly efficient photocatalytic and photovoltaic devices.
Research Opportunities for Students
Information on requirements:
Currently accepting:
Graduate
Undergraduate
-
- Is it Paid?
- In a lab?
- Prerequisites
- Learning materials
Publications
- M. E. Vaida and S. R. Leone, Femtosecond XUV photoemission spectroscopy: Observation of ultrafast charge transfer at the n-TiO2/p-Si(100) interface with controlled TiO2 oxygen vacancies, J. Phys. Chem. C, 120, 2769 (2016)
- E. Vaida and S. R. Leone, Tracing dissociation dynamics of CH3Br in the 3Q0 state with femtosecond extreme ultraviolet ionization, Chem. Phys. 442, 41 (2014)
- E. Vaida and T. M. Bernhardt, Surface-aligned femtochemistry: Molecular reaction dynamics on oxide surfaces, in Springer Series in Chemical Physics 107, edited by Rebeca de Nalda and Luis Bañares, Springer Verlag, 231 (2014)
- E. Vaida and T. M. Bernhardt, Surface-aligned femtochemistry: Photoinduced reaction dynamics of CH3I and CH3Br on MgO(100), Faraday Discuss. 157, 437 (2012).
- E. Vaida and T. M. Bernhardt, Surface pump-probe femtosecond-laser mass spectrometry: Time-, mass-, and velocity-resolved detection of surface reaction dynamics, Rev. Sci. Instrum., 81, 104103 (2010)
