| Phd Student Nanoscience Laboratory
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| Current Project | Undertaking research toward a PhD thesis based on the synthesis and physical characterisation of nanoparticles.
Of particular interest are the advantages of doping and alloying semiconductor nanocrystals, toward the creation of novel, non-toxic and potentially multifunctional nanomaterials for use in such diverse fields as biological imaging, chemical and environmental analysis and new solar energy technologies. Under current investigation are the effects of various dopants on ZnSe nanocrystal emission properties and their stability under different conditions. The definition of doping relevant to this work is the deliberate incorporation during synthesis of a foreign cationic species which is able to introduce new energy levels into the semiconductor host in order to alter its optoelectronic properties. ZnSe was chosen as the host material because its photoluminescent emission lies in the UV region of the spectrum and is thereby not normally visible to the human eye. Most dopant species introduce emission in the visible region, hence any dopant emission will be readily distinguishable from that of the undoped ZnSe crystals. The ZnSe nanocrystals are synthesised via the hot injection procedure, whereby a room temperature reagent is injected swiftly into a heated reagent and crystals precipitate spontaneously from the critically saturated solution. Further information may be provided to interested parties upon request. Also of interest are the effects of synthetic and post-synthetic parameters on crystal structure. The syntheses of many fascinating shapes may already be found in the literature, including dandelions (Liu and Zeng, JACS 2004), chestnuts (Hosono et al., ACS Nano 2007), flowers (Zhang et al., J Phys Chem C 2007) and snowflakes (Liu et al., J Phys Chem 2007). |
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| Education |
Tertiary qualifications held: BASc, BSc(Hons). Spent much of 2006 working on microfluid reactor technology for the purpose of simplified CdSe core production, as well as looking at the kinetics of CdSe nanocrystal nucleation and growth using traditional wet chemistry with online analytical methods. |
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