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Paul Alivisatos
Professor of Chemistry
University of California, Berkeley

Talk Title: Colloidal Nanocrystals of Complex Shape: Synthesis, Properties, Applications

Abstract
Over the last decade, there have been significant advances in the ability to prepare colloidal inorganic nanocrystals with controlled size, shape, and even interconnection (branching) and topology (hollow and nested). These materials exhibit strongly size dependent properties, but they also share many of the characteristics of inorganic solids, in terms of stability and range of properties. They can be processed in solution like polymers. They thus make attractive candidates for incorporation into a wide range of technologies, from biological labels to components in solar cells and catalysts.

Biographical Sketch
Paul Alivisatos attended the University of Chicago, where he received a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry with Honors in 1981. He continued his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked under the supervision of Charles Harris. His Ph.D. thesis concerned the photophysics of electronically excited molecules near metal and semiconductor surfaces. In 1986, he went to AT&T Bell Labs where he worked with Louis Brus as a postdoctoral, and it was at this time that he first became involved in research related to Nanotechnology. In 1988, he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1993 and to Professor in 1995. He was appointed Chancellor's Professor of the University of California, Berkeley for the period 1998-2001. Additionally, in 1999, he was appointed Professor in the Materials Science and Mineral Engineering Department. He has received the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowship, the ACS Exxon Solid State Chemistry Fellowship, the Coblentz Award, the Wilson Prize at Harvard, DOE Awards for Outstanding Scientific Accomplishment in Materials Chemistry (1994) and for Sustained Outstanding Research in Materials Chemistry (1997), the Materials Research Society Outstanding Young Investigator Award and the ACS Award in Colloid and Surface Chemistry (2004). He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2004, he was elected into the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Arts. He is the Editor of the American Chemical Society Journal, Nano Letters and is Associate Editor of the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Accounts of Chemical Research (American Chemical Society) and the Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science and Technology (American Physical Society).

He is a senior member of the technical staff at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he has been appointed Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences and where he also serves as Director of the Materials Sciences Division. He has served as a member of the Defense Sciences Study Group, participated on panels of the Defense Science Board and the National Research Council, and is currently a member of the Department of Energy Council on Materials Sciences. His research concerns the structural, thermodynamic, optical, and electrical properties of nanocrystals.

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