CAREER: From Maps to Mechanisms: Engineering Interfacial Electron Transfer via Nanoscale Electrostatic Landscapes

Researchers at Arizona State University are developing new ways to visualize and control how electrons move across complex material interfaces. Electron transfer drives critical processes in technologies ranging from sensing to chemical catalysis, yet scientists still cannot predict how electrons move across the highly irregular surfaces of real materials. Small variations in composition, defects, and surface chemistry create localized electrical fields that can accelerate, suppress, or redirect electron motion over distances of only a few tens of nanometers. However, this spatial variation is not captured by measurements that average over large areas. The research team will create model materials with precisely controlled nanoscale features and combine them with advanced fluorescence imaging methods capable of tracking where electrons move rapidly, slowly, or not at all across heterogeneous surfaces. By integrating these measurements with machine learning and data-driven analysis, the team will identify hidden patterns and predictive relationships between local surface structure, electrostatic environments, and electron-transfer behavior. Their discoveries could establish new design principles for controlling charge movement at complex interfaces, helping guide the development of more efficient catalytic, sensing, and energy-related materials. The project will also expand access to nanoscale science through research-inspired educational kits developed with local high school teachers and vertically integrated mentoring activities involving undergraduate and graduate trainees. This project seeks to establish a predictive framework linking nanoscale electrostatic heterogeneity, including variations in surface potential, with interfacial electron-transfer dynamics in mixed-metal oxide systems. The research team will combine materials synthesis, electrostatic mapping, fluorescence imaging, machine learning, and physics-based modeling to uncover how local surface structure and electrical environments govern electron-transfer behavior. Mixed-metal oxides with controlled compositional gradients, defects, and surface terminations will be developed to create tunable electrostatic landscapes and mapped using nanoscale surface-potential measurements. Redox-responsive fluorescence probes and single-molecule imaging approaches will then visualize spatial variations in electron-transfer activity and local kinetic behavior across heterogeneous interfaces. Experimental measurements will be integrated with machine learning and mechanistic simulations to identify predictive relationships between electrostatic structure and localized electron-transfer dynamics. Differences between predicted and experimentally observed activity patterns will reveal hidden mechanisms such as charge trapping, electrostatic screening, and transport limitations while guiding iterative redesign of material interfaces. Together, these efforts will establish an experimentally grounded platform for understanding and controlling charge-transfer processes across complex interfaces. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. NSF Award ID: 2543886 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Dorsa Parviz | Institution: Arizona State University, SCOTTSDALE, AZ | Award Amount: $623,804 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2543886 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2543886.html