The Faculty

Professor BelBruno received his B.S. degree in chemistry in 1974 from Seton Hall University. He received a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1980 from Rutgers University. Postdoctoral training was obtained in the Departments of Chemistry and Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University where he pursued his interest in laser techniques. Professor BelBruno has been a member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1982, including a sabbatical at the Technical University of Munich as an Alexander von Humbodlt Research Fellow.

Name : Joseph J. Belbruno (e-mail)
Position: Professor of Chemistry
Research Group Web Site

Research Interests

Computational chemistry is employed in an effort to improve our understanding of chemical reactions of significance to materials science as well as to aid in the extraction of reaction mechanisms for the formation of thin films and clusters. In particular, we have examined the reaction mechanisms for deposition of metal sulfide films, the structure and formation of metal nitride clusters and the structure of carbon nitride molecules. Current work is exploring the electronic structure of ligand stabilized gold clusters. Most calculations employ density functional theory for isolated molecules, however, some recent work has taken these studies into the condensed phase.

A second project employs structure calculations, as described above, as input in neural network calculations to extract intermolecular potentials for atom-atom and atom-molecule interactions. Included among the systems of interest are N impacting on graphite, H (and H2) impacting on fullerenes, oxygen on silica and metal clusters on silica.

Our previously obtained experimental results from the study of the reaction mechanisms of the photo-decomposition of organometallic complexes are now employed in a project which involves the use of these materials to produce powders of semiconductors and other relevant electronic materials from the gas phase. At present, the experimental effort is focused on the production of CdS, but other potential materials include CdSe, ZnS, etc.

Additional projects, explored as an extension of some of the work noted above, involve experimental and modeling efforts to understand the process of sensitized laser chemistry, the experimental study of cluster formation (in metal nitrides, silicon and germanium) and experimental efforts to produce organometallic radicals in sufficiently large quantities so as to examine the spectroscopy of these interesting molecules.

Selected Publications

• J.J. BelBruno, “Molecularly Imprinted Polymers: Artificial Receptors with Wide-Ranging Applications”, Micro and Nanosystems (2009), Invited Review-submitted.
• J. J. BelBruno, E. Sanville, A. Burnin, A. K. Muhangi and A. Malyutin, “Structural Calculations and Experimental Detection of Small Ga_mS_n Clusters Using Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry”, Chem. Phys. Lett., (2009), accepted for publication.
• S.E. Campbell, M. Collins, Lie Xie, Lei and J.J. BelBruno “Surface morphology of spin-coated molecularly imprinted polymer films”, Surface and Interface Analysis 41, 347 (2009).
• J.J. Belbruno, U.J. Gibson, J.E.G. Lipson and M.N. Wybourne, “Molecularly imprinted polymer sensor systems and related methods.” PCT Int. Appl. (2008),15pp. WO/2008/045,596. (Patent).
• J.J. BelBruno, A. Richter and U. Gibson, “Amazing pores:  processing morphology and functional states of molecularly imprinted polymers as sensing materials”, Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals 438, 179 (2008).
• K. Chuchev and J.J. BelBruno, “Oxidation of catechol to 2-hydroxymuconic semialdehyde”,   THEOCHEM 856, 71 (2008).
• J.J. BelBruno, “Adsorption of ZnO, (ZnO)2 and (ZnO)3 on MgO(001).”, Surface Science 602  1837 (2008).
• K. Chuchev and J.J. BelBruno, “Computational treatment of the microsolvation of neutral and zwitterionic forms of alanine”,THEOCHEM 850, 111 (2008).
• S.E. Campbell and J.J. BelBruno, “Nanoindentation study of thin film molecularly imprinted polymers”, Abstracts of Papers, 235th ACS National Meeting, New Orleans, LA, United States, April 6-10, 2008  (2008).
• R. Smith, S.D. Kenny, J.J. BelBruno and R.E. Palmer, “Modelling the structure and dynamics of metal atom nanoclusters deposited on graphite”, Chemical Physics of Solid Surfaces 12, 589 (2007).
• E. Sanville and J.J. BelBruno, “Electronic and geometric structure calculations of adsorption of small (ZnO)i clusters (i=1-4) on graphite”, Physical Review B  76, 085412 (2007).
• A. Richter,  H. Gojzewski and J.J. Belbruno,  “Visco-elastic properties of thin nylon films using multi-cycling nanoindentation”   Int. J. Materials Research  98, 414 (2007).
• K. Chuchev and J.J. BelBruno, “Mechanisms of decarboxylation of ortho-substituted benzoic acids”, THEOCHEM 807, 1 (2007).
• J.J. BelBruno, A. Richter, S.E. Campbell and U.J. Gibson, “Detection of functional states of molecularly imprinted thin films with multi-cycling nanoindentation”, Polymer, 48, 1679 (2007).