25th Anniversary Distinguished Lecture Series

 

lagallyMaterials Science at Reduced Dimensions:
Expressing 'Nano' through Quantum Dots, Wires and Sheets

Max G. Lagally
Erwin W. Mueller Professor and Bascom Professor of Surface Science,
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Friday, Feb. 3, 11 a.m., TI Auditorium (ECSS 2.102) Refreshments at 10:45 a.m.

 

Abstract
From the celebrated lecture by Feynman (1959, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”) and the coining of the term “nanotechnology” (Taniguchi 1974) to the current significant scientific and technological successes, it is clear that “nano” has come a long way. It has also become evident that nano is essentially about materials and the processing of materials, with a great impetus provided by tools that allow observation and quantitative measurement at the reduced dimensions at which functional properties diverge from those of bulk materials. In particular, scanned-probe tools, which can follow the behavior of individual atoms, were instrumental in the coming of age of nanoscience and technology in the 1990’s. I will offer a perspective, using chemical elements from Group IV, of one path that parallels the evolution of research in nanoscience. The path leads from scanning tunnel microscopy studies of the motion of atoms on Si surfaces; to Ge nanostructures (quantum dots) fabricated with atom-by-atom deposition methods; to current research on nanometer thick sheets (nanomembranes) of Si, Ge, and their alloys that demonstrates novel electronic and mechanical properties. I will also illustrate briefly technology development that has paralleled the advances in scientific understanding in this microcosm of materials at reduced dimensions.

Bio
Max G. Lagally is the Erwin W. Mueller Professor of Materials Science and Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focusses on growth and structure-properties relationships of materials at the nanoscale, primarily semiconductors. He received his B.S. degree from the Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. degree from Wisconsin, both in physics. He has been Visiting Professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and a Humboldt Fellow at the Forschungszentrum, Jülich, Germany. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the German National Academy of Sciences - Leopoldina, and has received numerous other awards, including the AVS Welch Award, the MRS Medal, and the APS Davisson-Germer Prize and David Adler Lectureship Award. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, APS, MRS, and AVS, and was selected as 1996 Outstanding Science Alumnus of the Pennsylvania State University. He has founded two companies, nPoint, Inc. and SonoPlot, Inc., based on technologies developed in his laboratories. He has over 400 publications, which have been cited over 14,000 times, and 17 patents, and has edited or co-edited four books. He has served on a number of National Research Council and federal-agency advisory panels.