Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory of the U.S. D.O.E and Berkeley’s Larry and Diane Bock Professor of Nanotechnology from the University of California, Paul Alivisatos has been honored with the Wolf Foundation Prize in the field of Chemistry for the year 2012.
This is Berkeley Lab director Paul Alivisatos.
Alivisatos is a globally acclaimed nanochemistry professional and one who initiated research in the field of artificial multi-shaped nanostructures and semiconductor quantum dots.
Nanoscience expert from Harvard University, Charles Lieber has also received the same award this year. Israel-based Wolf Foundation recognizes exceptional artists and scientists every year from the year 1978. The popular conductor and tenor, Placido Domingo is among the winners for 2012.
Alivisatos has been credited for developing colloidal inorganic nanocrystals as a nanoscience building block and for contributing substantially to monitoring particle synthesis, for determining and studying their physical characteristics and to use their exclusive characteristics for applications such as light generation, harvesting and biological imaging.
Alivisatos is the person who showed that semiconductor nanocrystals can be formed into two-dimensional rods as well as other shapes as against spheres. By this, the possibility of a wide range of applications such as revolutionary photovoltaic cells, LED materials and biomedical diagnostics have been achieved. He also proved several major nanocrystal applications in renewable energy and biological imaging. Before his research, all non-metallic nanocrystals were dot-shaped and single dimensional.