Richard J. Colton
Richard J. Colton is a supervisory research chemist and Head of the
section on
Advanced Surface Spectroscopy at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL),
Washington, DC.
He earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pittsburgh in
1972 and 1976,
respectively. He performed his graduate work under the direction of
Professor J. W. Rabalais
in the areas of ultraviolet and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In 1976,
he was awarded a
National Research Council Resident Research Associateship at the Naval
Research Laboratory
for a research proposal dealing with secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS).
Dr. Colton
joined the staff at NRL in 1977 and conducts basic and applied research in
the area of surface
chemistry. His research interests include surface and materials analysis by
electron spectroscopy
and secondary ion mass spectrometry, the study of surfaces and molecular
adsorbates by
scanning tunneling microscopy, the measurement of the nanomechanical
properties of materials
using atomic force microscopy, and the development of new sensor concepts
using electron
tunneling and force transducers. He has published over 125 technical papers
included four book
chapters and five patents. Dr. Colton is a member of the American Chemical
Society (ACS),
Sigma Xi, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) and the
American Vacuum
Society (AVS). He was the first chairman of the newly established AVS
Division on
Nanometer-scale Science and Technology in 1993, former chair of the AVS
Applied Surface
Science Division, and served on the AVS Board of Directors in 1992-93. Dr.
Colton is also a
member of the editorial board of the Journal of Vacuum Science and
Technology and a former
member of the editorial boards of Surface and Interface Analysis and Applied
Surface Science.
He is also the recipient of the 1992 Hillebrand Prize awarded by the
Chemical Society of
Washington and was elected as AVS Fellow in 1995.