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Langmuir 2001, 17, 1316-1316
Obituary Gregory E. Poirier, 1961-2000 It is with great sadness that the surface science community mourns the tragic loss of one its brightest young stars, Dr. Gregory E. Poirier, who lost his life in September at the age of 39. Greg was a physical chemist in the Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Professor J. Mike White where he studied the surface science of single-crystal transitionmetal oxides. He joined NIST in 1991 as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Research Associate where he built a scanning tunneling microscope to study the chemical-sensing properties of metal oxide surfaces under the direction of Steve Semancik. Greg gained a reputation as one of the world’s foremost experts in the scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) of alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). His STM studies of SAMs are widely regarded as unparalleled in terms of their scientific impact and pure beauty. Using an instrument that he designed and constructed, Greg’s STM images revealed the structural complexity and phase behavior that governs the two-dimensional (2D) world of alkanethiols on gold. Through meticulous and rigorous interpretation of these images, he unlocked many structural details of SAMs and gained an understanding of the molecular forces that govern the assembly of SAMs. He was the first to identify and interpret many different SAM phases including the pin-stripe and 2-D liquid-like phases. In one of his final publications, which appears in this issue, along with Fitts and White, he reports the first 2-D phase diagram of alkanethiols on Au(111). Greg’s large body of STM images have certainly influenced the way researchers think of and picture SAMs; his STM images
have graced the covers of numerous journals, and his publications have been cited nearly 1000 times. He also was a sought after speaker who presented lectures on his work at conferences, universities, and national laboratories throughout the USA, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and Japan. For his STM studies of SAMs, he won the NIST Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory Technical Achievement Award in 1996 and in 2000 he was honored as the NIST Sigma Xi Young Investigator of the Year. Outside of work, he enjoyed Cajun and Zydeco dancing and renovating his house. Greg’s generosity, kindness, and passion for science will be missed by his family, his friends at NIST, and his many colleagues in the surface science community. Michael J. Tarlov Chemical Science and Technology Laboratory National Institute of Standards and Technology
10.1021/la010052h CCC: $20.00 © 2001 American Chemical Society Published on Web 02/13/2001
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