Paul D Ashby Postdoctoral Fellow (Molecular Foundry) Materials Sciences Division, Mail Stop 67R2206 (Office 67-1202/1208) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720 USA Phone: +1-510-495-2210 FAX: +1-510-486-7268 Email:PDAshby@lbl.gov I am a postdoctoral fellow with the Molecular Foundry under the direction of Dr. Miquel Salmeron in the Imaging and Manipulation Facility. I am interested in studying intermolecular and interfacial forces using the Atomic Force Microscope. A primary focus of my work is investigating the relationship between surface chemistry and solvation in determining long range (0.5-3 nm) forces and adhesion, specifically water on hydrophilic SAM surfaces. I have built an ultra-high precision AFM with cantilever deflection detection specifications of 15 fm/rtHz white noise and 2 pm of noise in a 1mHz to 1kHz bandwidth, with which I will measure equilibrium interfacial force profiles without snap-in or snap out instability. An understanding of solvation has important applications numerous fields for example bottom-up fabrication of nanoscale devices using self-assembly, controlling friction and wear in nano- and micro- electomechanical systems(NEMS and MEMS), and protein engineering through predicting protein folds.