Paul Alivisatos
Resources:
The Kavli Symposia
"Artificial molecules built from colloidal nanocrystals"
Colloidal nanocrystals can be thought of as artificial atoms, or units with controllable density of electronic states. In recent years we have been working on coupled colloidal nanocrystals, to create artificial molecules. One example involves branched nanocrystals, such as tetrapods, the individual branches of which can be wired up into a transistor. A more recent example involves the creation of regularly spaced colloidal quantum dots within a rod shaped semiconductor nanocrystal. In a third example, we can use DNA to direct the assembly of specific nanoparticle groupings. In all cases, we are able to observe strong coupling between individual nanocrystals, leading to collective behavior in the nanocrystal molecule. Such nanocrystal molecules may have significant applications in fields as diverse as biological imaging and renewable energy.
