Giacinto Scoles

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Giacinto Scoles (born April 2, 1935 in Turin ) is an Italian-American physical chemist . He is a US citizen.

Life

Scoles grew up partly in Spain and studied at the University of Genoa until 1959. He became an assistant professor in Genoa in 1960, conducted research at the University of Leiden with Jan Beenakker from 1961 to 1964 and was again a professor in Genoa from 1964, where he completed his habilitation in 1968 (Libero Docente) . In 1971 he became professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Waterloo . At the same time he also worked at the University of Trento in the 1970s, where he set up a molecular beam laboratory. In 1987 he became Donner Professor of Science at Princeton University . From 2003 he taught and researched again partly in Trieste ( Sissa , Synchrotron Elettra ).

research

In the early years in Genoa, among other things, he dealt with isotope separation during adsorption on surfaces, in Leiden with the Senftleben-Beenakker effect (change in the transport properties of polyatomic gases through electric and magnetic fields). Back in Genoa, he dealt with the investigation of intermolecular forces ( Van der Waals forces ) on molecular beams. For this purpose he developed a bolometer for measurements on molecular beams. One of the achievements of his laboratory was the first observation of rainbow scattering and orbit resonances when two atoms were scattered. At the University of Waterloo he set up a laboratory for experiments on crossed molecular beams and for laser spectroscopy in chemistry, the Center for Molecular Beams and Laser Chemistry , and the Center for Surface Science in Technology . He investigated molecules absorbed on surfaces and in noble gas clusters (with diffractive scattering of atomic beams) and of molecules in droplets of superfluid liquid helium (helium nanodroplet matrix spectroscopy). With Kevin K. Lehmann , he investigated energy relaxation in large isolated molecules with phenomena such as quantum chaos and classical chaos . In recent years he has increasingly turned to the study of biologically and medically important proteins and their interactions, which are examined in samples from a few cells or in individual cells.

Prizes and awards

In 1986, Scoles was a Killam Fellow in Canada. In 1995 he received a Humboldt Research Award and was awarded an honorary doctorate in Genoa and at the University of Waterloo (D.Sc.). Also in 1995 he received the Lippincott Award for Molecular Spectroscopy from the Optical Society of America . He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (1991) and the Royal Society (1997) and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (2000). In 2002 he received the Peter Debye Award , in 2003 the Earle K. Plyler Prize of the American Physical Society (with Kevin Lehmann) and in 2006 the Benjamin Franklin Medal (with Jan Peter Toennies ).

Publications (selection)

  • Atomic and molecular beam methods , New York: Oxford University Press, 1988-1992, ISBN 0-195-04280-8
  • The chemical physics of atomic and molecular clusters: Varenna on Lake Como, Villa Monastero, 28 June-7 July 1988 , Amsterdam: Sole distributors for the USA and Canada, Elsevier Science Pub. Co., 1990, ISBN 0-444-88331-2
  • The possible impact of free electron lasers on spectroscopy and chemistry: a report of a workshop held in Riva del Garda (Trento) Italy on June 4, 5, and 6, 1979

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
personal data
SURNAME Scoles, Giacinto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian-American physical chemist
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Turin