(4dw) Nanoengineered Materials for Sensing and Energy Conversion

Nanoscale structures, such as nanoparticles (NPs), nanowires (NWs), and nanotubes (NTs), are attractive materials for electronics because of their potential for device miniaturization and unique properties which arise from surface/interface dominated behavior and size dependent quantum confinement effects. These building blocks of can be further complexed with axial and radial interfaces, to create multilayered, core/shell, and nanopeapod structures. However, to fully exploit these higher level configurations, nanomaterials must be engineered for specific properties and interfacial characteristics that give rise to enhanced functionalities for communications, data storage, logic operations, sensing, and energy conversion. This arduous task requires an intimate understanding of processing condition on surface/interfacial quality and crystallographic features and their subsequent impact on physical properties of interest. In this work I will describe a variety of strategies developed to synthesize, probe, and generate understanding of conducting polymer, magnetic, Pt alloy and chalcogenide systems at the micro- and nano-level.