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in-cites,
May 2006
http://www.in-cites.com/papers/LionelVayssieres.html
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An
interview with:
Dr. Lionel Vayssieres |
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 his
month, in-cites talks with Dr. Lionel Vayssieres, whose paper
"Growth of arrayed nanorods and nanowires of ZnO from
aqueous solutions" (Advan. Mater. 15[5]: 464-6, 4
March 2003) was designated as a top Hot Paper in May,
September,
and November
2005 in Materials Science. At that time, the paper had 111
cites; currently it has attracted 148 citations and counting
in Essential
Science Indicators .
Two related papers of his have also been cited in excess of
100 times: "Three-dimensional array of highly oriented
crystalline ZnO microtubes" (Vayssieres L., et al.,
Chem. Mater. 13[12]:4395-+, 2001) and
"Purpose-built anisotropic metal oxide material: 3D
highly oriented microrod array of ZnO" (Vayssieres L., et
al., J. Phys. Chem. B 105[17]:3350-2, 2001).
His record in Essential Science Indicators includes 22
papers cited a total of 584 times, the majority of which are
in the field of Materials Science. Dr. Vayssieres is
affiliated with the National Institute for Materials Science
in Japan and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in
California. He is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the International
Journal of Nanotechnology.
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What are the circumstances
which led you to your work?
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“Building functional materials from molecular scale to nano-, meso-, and micro-scale is the key to economical mass production of nanostructures and nanodevices.”
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My Ph.D. research work (awarded in Paris, November 1995) was on
interfacial thermodynamics modeling and growth control of metal oxide
nanoparticles in aqueous solutions. The simple extension of the
concepts from homogeneous nucleation to heterogeneous nucleation
during my postdoctoral research studies enabled the direct growth of
nano building blocks onto substrate rather than just in solution. It
allows the easy fabrication of nanostructured thin films of large
physical area with control over the morphology and orientation of
their constituents.
Would you summarize the paper briefly and describe its significance
for your field?
The paper is at the border of solution chemistry and materials
science and exposes the controlled growth of ZnO anisotropic objects
at multi-length scale onto various substrates via a simple and cheap
method yet with high purity and crystallinity in water and at low
temperatures.
What are the advantages of the approach you wrote about in this paper
compared with other approaches in use?
The obvious advantages of this approach (Int. J.
Nanotechnology 1[1-2]:1-41, 2004 and 2[4]:411-39, 2005) are the
very low cost and very simple equipment requirement—that is,
water, metal salts, and a regular laboratory oven —to
grow large arrays of crystalline nanorods, microrods, and nanowires
with different orientations onto virtually any substrate at
temperatures below 100°C, without surfactant, template,
or applied external fields.
Are there any practical applications that have arisen as a result of
this approach?
ZnO is a very well-known II-VI semiconductor, and many practical
applications are already known, but the simplicity of the method
enabled the generation of oriented nano- to micro-structures of ZnO
(and other metal oxides, e.g., Angew.
Chem. Int. Ed. 43[28]:3666-70, 2004) onto various substrates
such as transparent conducting glass or plastic substrates for
photovoltaic cells (e.g., J. Electrochem. Soc.
147[7]:2456-61, 2000) sensors and optoelectronic devices on Si
wafers as well as magnetic devices on sapphire (e.g., Nano Lett.
2[12]:1393-5, 2002). Several other applications are currently under
investigation for catalysis, photocatalysis (e.g., Adv. Mater.
17[19]:2320-3, 2005), and biosensors, for instance.
Where do you see this research going in 5 years? In 10 years?
Nanomaterials chemistry and chemical nanotechnology have a very
bright future. Building functional materials from molecular scale to
nano-, meso-, and micro-scale is the key to economical mass
production of nanostructures and nanodevices. In addition, designing
nanomaterials with well-controlled morphology and orientation allows
a better fundamental understanding of their chemical and physical
properties and structure-property relationships. The generation of
patterned nano-arrays of purpose-built nanomaterials should
contribute to unfolding the real potentials of devices, and I am
confident that materials chemistry will play a major role in
achieving such ambitious goals.
As far as my own research plans, novel syntheses and electronic
structure investigations of new one-dimensional transition metal and
lanthanide oxides are on their way as well as a future crystal
structure-dependant model of the interfacial tension. In addition,
nanodevices for solar hydrogen generation, built from such strategy,
are currently under fabrication. An interesting and challenging
future indeed!
Dr. Lionel Vayssieres
Nanomaterials Senior Scientist and R&D Consultant
Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanotechnology
National Institute for Materials Science
International Center for Young Scientists
Tsukuba, Ibaraki, JAPAN
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Chemical Sciences Division
Berkeley, CA, USA
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in-cites, May 2006
http://www.in-cites.com/papers/LionelVayssieres.html
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cites
