Phil Sprunger (right below) came to PENN in the fall of 1986after completing his undergraduate work at Wheaton College and Indiana University.  His thesis, which was completed in 1993, was titled “The interaction of Hydrogen with Simple and Noble Metal Surfaces.”  Three of the most cited papers from his thesis are:

• An Experimental Study of the Interaction of Hydrogen with the Mg(0001) Surface: P.T. Sprunger, and E. W. Plummer, Chem. Phys. Lett. 187, 559 (1991).

• Multilayer Relaxation of the Mg(0001) Surface, P. T. Sprunger, K. Pohl, H. L. Davis and E. W. Plummer, Surf. Sci. 297, L48 (1993).

• The Interaction of Hydorgen with Simple Metal Surfaces, P. T. Sprunger, and E. W. Plummer, Surf. Sci. 307, 118 (1994).

After graduation Phil took a postdoctoral position in Aarhus, Denmark with Professor Flemming Bessenbacher.  He is now a professor of Physics at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana [Photo].

Ku-Ding Tsuei  (left in picture) came to PENN after completing his undergraduate education in Taiwan.  Ku-Ding’s thesis was titled “Surface Plasmon Dispersion on Simple and Noble Metals.”  Much of this work on the fundamental nature of surface plasmons was done in collaboration with Peter Feibelman form Sandia National Laboratories and Ansgar Liebsch at Julich in Germany.  Ku-Ding was the first person to observe and correctly identify the Multipole Plasmon Mode on a metal surface.  Three of the most cited papers (all cited more than 100 times)  coming from his thesis work are:

• Surface Plasmon Dispersion in Simple Metals, K. D. Tsuei, E. W. Plummer and P. J. Feibelman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 63, 2256 (1989).

• Multipole Plasmon Modes at a Metal Surface. K. D. Tsuei, E. W. Plummer, A. Liebsch, K. Kempa, and P. Bakshi, Phys. Rev. Lett. 64, 44 (1990).

• The Normal Modes at the Surface of Simple Metals, K. D. Tsuei, E. W. Plummer, A. Liebsch, E. Pehlke, K. Kempa, and P. Bakshi, Surf. Sci. 247, 302 (1991). 

After completing his degree he worked as a postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Peter Johnson at Brookhaven National Laboratory.  He is now a staff scientists at the national synchrotron facility in Taiwan.