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Winner of the IUPAC Prize
for Young Chemists - 2006

 

Matt Law wins one of the five IUPAC Prizes for Young Chemists, for his Ph.D. thesis work entitled "Oxide Nanowires for Sensing, Photonics and Photovoltaics."

Current address (at the time of application)

Department of Chemistry
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA. 94720
E-mail: [email protected]

Academic degrees

  • Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, December 2005, Chemistry
  • B.A., Wesleyan University, May 1999, Chemistry

Ph.D. Thesis

Title Oxide Nanowires for Sensing, Photonics and Photovoltaics

Adviser Professor Peidong Yang

Thesis Committee Prof. Peidong Yang, Chemistry (Chair), Gabor Somorjai (Chemistry) and Ronald Gronsky (Materials Science)

Essay

One-dimensional inorganic nanostructures are a promising class of basic building blocks for future optoelectronic, mechanical and energy conversion devices. In this dissertation, single-crystalline SnO2 and ZnO nanowires are used as model materials in proof-of-concept demonstrations of nanowire-based photodetection, chemical sensing, thermometry, photonics and photovoltaics. Each demonstration leverages specific attributes of the wire shape, such as its ability to confine and conduct electrons and photons, to produce miniature devices with novel functionality. To begin, single oxide nanowires made by vapor deposition are fabricated into ultraviolet photodetectors and fast, stable and responsive gas sensors. Next, a conceptually new synthesis of multi-component nanowires is presented in which nanowires with rectangular cross-sections act as templates for the deposition of a complementary material. The resulting bilayer structures act as nanoscale temperature sensors that bend when heated or cooled and offer an ideal geometry for studying the dynamics of interfaces by electron microscopy. In addition, SnO2 nanowires thinner than the wavelength of visible light are shown to function as versatile waveguides that are suitable for signal routing, frequency filtering and spectroscopy in integrated nanoscale optical circuitry. The length, flexibility and strength of these nanowires enable the construction of nanowire emitter-waveguide-detector junctions and other prototype assemblies. The final topic of this thesis is the development of ordered solar cell architectures based on arrays of nanowires coated with a molecular dye or encased in a polymer. A facile and flexible aqueous synthesis of ZnO nanowire arrays is presented, and the performance of three different types of nanowire solar cells discussed...[more; pdf file - 4.05MB]

 


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