Three University of Chicago chemistry professors hope that their separate research trajectories will converge to create a new way of assembling what they call “designer atoms” into materials with a broad array of potentially useful properties and functions.
These “designer atoms” would be nanocrystals—crystalline arrays of atoms intended to be manipulated in ways that go beyond standard uses of atoms in the periodic table. Such arrays would be suited to address challenges in solar energy, quantum computing and functional materials. (more…)
Berkeley Lab Researchers Observations of Nanorod Crystal Growth Points Way to Next Generation Energy Devices
In the growth of crystals, do nanoparticles act as “artificial atoms” forming molecular-type building blocks that can assemble into complex structures? This is the contention of a major but controversial theory to explain nanocrystal growth. A study by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) may resolve the controversy and point the way to energy devices of the future.
Led by Haimei Zheng, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, the researchers used a combination of transmission electron microscopy and advanced liquid cell handling techniques to carry out real-time observations of the growth of nanorods from nanoparticles of platinum and iron. Their observations support the theory of nanoparticles acting like artificial atoms during crystal growth. (more…)
