el of the outer Ν atom. By finely tuning the X-ray source, the team chooses which Ν atom to excite.

"We can see that the reaction pro­ceeds along very different pathways de­pending on whether we excite the inner or the outer nitrogen atom," Feulner says. Photons near 399 eV in energy cause excitations in the outer Ν atom, leading to mainly neutral N2 molecules. Photons with an additional 0.7 eV of en­ergy excite the inner Ν atom, which pri­marily results in desorbed Ν atoms.

Menzel comments that the results appear counterintuitive. One might ex­pect that exciting the inner atom would break the molecule-metal bond and de-sorb intact molecules, he says, and ex­

citing the outer atom would break N-N bonds leading to Ν atoms.

But the electronic states that break bonds aren't the initial states that form as X-rays impinge upon the sample, Menzel points out If s the final states that count— the ones reached after the electron-shuf­fling process has run its course. 'We un­derstand which final states are reached after the core holes have been filled. And the final states are different for the outer and inner Ν atoms," he says.

So is there an obvious way to put this atom-breaking method to use? "It's hard to say," Madey remarks. "Perhaps it can be used in advanced lithographic appli­cations where one would excite specific bonds in mask compounds."

Similarly, Wolkow notes that the Mu­nich group "may have opened the door to useful chemically specific molecular or surface transformations."

Menzel cautions against overstating the applicability of his group's recent suc­cess. "Perhaps we can find cases where, instead of selectively removing an atom from a surface, we can cause it to bump into a neighboring surface molecule and react. That would be interesting." Or per­haps the new method could be used someday to reach electronically excited final states to form products that are inac­cessible by thermal means. "But mainly we've learned something new in basic chemistry and physics," he says.

Mitch Jacoby

c & e n t a l k s w i t h . . .

Afew games of golf and a lun­cheon with the governor of Cal­ifornia recently led to a multi­

million-dollar proposal for a series of university-based science institutes that will very likely come into exist­ence over the next few years.

In his Jan. 5 State of the State Ad­dress, California Gov. Gray Davis asked state legislators for an initial $75 million appropriation "to launch California In­stitutes for Science & Innovation, to be established at three campuses of the University of California."

The idea for the institutes originat­ed with Richard A. Lerner, president of Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, and John J. Moores, a software entre­preneur, philanthropist, University of California regent, and co-owner of the San Diego Padres baseball team. Gov. Davis is "a personal friend of mine and a close friend of John's," Lerner says. 'We play golf together, and we sup­ported Davis when no one believed he would ever become governor."

Last fall, Davis asked Lerner and Moores to drop by his of­fice in Sacramento for lunch. Over sandwiches, "the governor asked, What can I do to make a difference?' " Lerner says. 'We said that since California is not heavy in smokestack industries, and since Silicon Valley and the biotech and telecommunica­tions industries have made all the difference in this state, that he needed to foster that kind of science and technology."

The political nuance "is that you can't put state money for research outside the University of California system," Lerner explains. "Historically, that's the way it has always been and should be." Therefore, he adds, "John and I came up with the idea of building a series of new institutes on University of Cali­fornia campuses." The institutes would be funded partly with state money and to a lesser extent by matching funds from the federal government, private industry, and foundations.

Richard A. Lerner The governor liked the idea, and

University of California President Rich­ard C. Atkinson did too. Davis' propos­al still has to be approved by the state legislature, but "the prospects for that are extremely high," Lerner says. "It's pretty nonpartisan, and everybody thinks it's the right thing to do. It's pretty hard to be against technology in the state of California."

According to a University of Califor­nia fact sheet on the institutes, the initial $75 million funding the governor is pro­posing would be matched by private and federal funds on a 2-to-l basis, with planning and development to begin in the 2000-01 fiscal year. "Ultimately," Lerner adds, "we're looking to have the institutes funded at a steady-state level of $100 million a year each."

The nine University of California campuses will join with private busi­nesses to compete for the three insti­tutes. A board that includes Davis, Atkinson, Lerner, and molecular and

cell biology professor Daniel E. Koshland of the University of California, Berkeley, will judge the proposals.

'The board is going to meet probably in February to work out the ground rules," Lerner says. Intellectual property issues and the relationship of institute personnel with their host cam­puses are among the topics that have to be considered.

Possible areas of specialization for the three institutes in­clude medicine and biotechnology, telecommunications, in­formation technology, energy, and agriculture. If a medicine and biotech institute comes to fruition, Lerner says, "I would hope it would have a very heavy chemistry component. In fact, we would be looking for that in the competition."

Scripps Research Institute "does not get anything out of this because we are not part of the state system," Lerner notes. 'We just think this is the right thing to do for the state."

Stu Borman

JANUARY 31, 2000 C&EN 3 7