McGill.CA / Science / Department of Physics

Physical Society Colloquium

Interview for Faculty Position

Nanocrystal Electronics and Manipulation

Marija Drndic

MIT

Nanocrystals are tunable single crystals a few nanometers in size. They have the properties of both atoms and crystals, and they exhibit new mesoscopic phenomena at room temperature. Efforts to explore nanocrystals unite the frontiers of physics, chemistry and engineering, and open up new applications ranging from electronics to biology. In this talk, I will discuss the preparation of CdSe nanocrystal arrays and their electronic properties. I will also show how we can image the charge transport in these arrays at room temperature. One of the challenges of making working devices with nanocrystals, and nanoscale objects in general, is to manipulate them and assemble them in custom-made circuits. I will present microelectromagnet devices that serve as new tools for nanoparticle manipulation. Microelectromagnets are based on small current-carrying wires, and they can be used to precisely control the position of particles: atoms in vacuum above a chip, nanoscale objects in fluids, and biological systems such as cells and bacteria.

Wednesday, March 26th 2003, 16:00
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, R.E. Bell Conference Room (room 103)