Education:
B.S. Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN, 2008
Ph.D. Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 2014
Professional Experience:
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Georgia, 2014-2015
Research Scientist, University of Missouri, Columbia, 2016 - 2017
Assistant Research Professor, University of Missouri, Columbia, 2018-2019
Assistant Professor, University of Missouri, Columbia, 2020 - Present
Awards
2024 Flygare Award Recipient
2024 Cottrell Scholar
Research in the Broderick lab focuses on the development of new tools to study ice chemistry. Our group has built a new instrument, Chirped-Pulse ICE (CPICE), to probe molecules that have desorbed from an ice surface with broadband rotational spectroscopy in the mm-wave regime. As shown below, the UHV apparatus contains a 4 K stage to generate neat or binary ices. Following deposition, the ice sample may be slowly warmed via temperature programmed desorption (TPD), or first exposed to ionizing radiation via a 10 K electron gun or VUV lamp before TPD begins. As the molecules reach their sublimation temperature and enter the gas phase, they are injected into the 25 K neon buffer gas cell thermally linked to a separate cold head, where they are promptly cooled and detected with chirped-pulse mm-wave spectroscopy.
Specific aims include experiments focused on gaining insight into the nature of the enantiomeric excess observed on earth, as well as the use of rotational spectroscopy to probe exotic molecules synthesized in ices that are not easily generated in the gas phase. We welcome students with an interest in physical chemistry, astrochemistry, and chemical physics to join us.
Kanaherarachchi, A., Hager, T., Borengasser, Q., & Broderick, B. M. (2024). Conformer Distributions of n-Propyl Cyanide in the Gas Phase and Following Ice Sublimation Measured by Broadband Rotational Spectroscopy. ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 8(1), 14-20.
Borengasser, Q., Hager, T., Kanaherarachchi, A., Troya, D., & Broderick, B. M. (2023). Conformer-Specific Desorption in Propanol Ices Probed by Chirped-Pulse Millimeter-Wave Rotational Spectroscopy. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 14(29), 6550-6555.
Radhakrishnan, S., Hager, T., Kanaherarachchi, A., Williams, C., Hall, G. E., & Broderick, B. M. (2022). Buffer gas cooled ice chemistry. I. Buffer gas cell and mm-wave spectrometer. The Journal of Chemical Physics, 157(15).
Gurusinghe, Ranil M., Dias, N., and Broderick, B. M. (2020) "Buffer Gas Cooling for Sensitive Rotational Spectroscopy of Ice Chemistry: A Proposal." Chemical Physics Letters: 138125.
Dias, N., Joalland, B., Ariyasingha, N. M., Suits, A. G., & Broderick, B. M. (2018). Direct versus Indirect Photodissociation of Isoxazole from Product Branching: A Chirped-Pulse Fourier Transform mm-Wave Spectroscopy/Pulsed Uniform Flow Investigation. The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 122(38), 7523-7531.
Broderick, B. M., Suas-David, N., Dias, N., & Suits, A. G. (2018). Isomer-specific detection in the UV photodissociation of the propargyl radical by chirped-pulse mm-wave spectroscopy in a pulsed quasi-uniform flow. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 20(8), 5517-5529.