Colloidal quantum dots. From scaling laws to biological applications
Paul Alivisatos
Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science, University
of California, Berkeley and Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory
Abstract: Over a twenty-year period, condensed matter physicists
and physical chemists have elucidated a series of scaling laws which
successfully describe the size dependence of solid state properties
[1,2]. Often the experiments were performed under somewhat exotic conditions,
for instance on mass-selected clusters isolated in molecular beams or
on quantum dots grown by molecular beam epitaxy and interrogated at
low temperatures and in high magnetic fields. As a result, we now have
an understanding of how thermodynamic, optical, electrical, and magnetic
properties evolve from the atomic to the solid state limit. This area
of research is presently undergoing a remarkable transformation. The
scaling laws, previously the direct subject of research, now provide
a tool for the design of advanced new materials. In the case of colloidal
quantum dots, or semiconductor nanocrystals, these new insights are
poised to have impact in disciplines remote from solid state physics
[3].
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