Christopher Bennett
Associate Professor
Department of Physics
PSB 308
407-823-0844
Christopher.Bennett@ucf.edu
Research Groups
Dr. Christopher Bennett received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa in 2009. He spent three years as a postdoctoral associate at the NASA Astrobiology Institute (Institute for Astronomy, Hawai’i) from 2009-2012 and two years as a postdoctoral associate at Georgia Tech from 2012 – 2014 in the department of Chemistry. He then joined GeorgiaTech as a research scientist for two years from 2014-2016 before joining UCF in 2016, where he has been an Assistant Professor since 2016.
PHYSICAL & ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY: Development of novel ultra-high vacuum techniques and instrumentation · surface science · thin film preparation and characterization · ionization techniques; resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) and synchrotron radiation · kinetics · molecular beam generation · polymer chemistry · computational chemistry for the predication of molecular properties · interaction of charged particles and photons with matter · non-equilibrium chemistry · radical & excited state chemistry. INSTRUMENTAL TECHNIQUES: FTIR spectroscopy · time-of-flight and quadrupole mass spectrometry · synchrotron photoionization · electron-, ion-, and photon-stimulated desorption · Raman spectroscopy · developing new Raman spectroscopy techniques, with biomedical applications · temperature programmed desorption · ToF-SIMS. ASTROCHEMISTRY, ASTROBIOLOGY, AND PLANETARY SCIENCE: Participation in mission and instrument development (particularly Raman and time-of-flight mass spectrometers) · interaction of radiation with surfaces · space weathering of airless bodies · Kuiper belt objects · comets · icy satellites · Mercury · the Moon · chemistry in the interstellar medium · origin of amino acids, peptides, and sugars on the early Earth · origin of life.
| Authors | Title | Published Date | Journal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cordiner, Martin; Bennett, Christopher | Chemical Complexity in Planetary Systems | Jun 2024 | ACS Earth and Space Chemistry 8, 1122 |
| Lo, Yuan Hung; Liao, Chen-Ting; Zhou, Jihan; and 14 coauthors | Multimodal x-ray and electron microscopy of the Allende meteorite | Sep 2019 | Science Advances 5, eaax3009 |