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David Alexander Britz (born November 23, 1980) is an American scientist and engineer who is best known for his contributions to the field of materials science and nanotechnology.
In 2004, Britz and his colleagues at Oxford and the University of Nottingham won a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for creating the world's smallest test tube, by performing chemical reactions inside of carbon nanotubes: "the nanotube has an inner diameter of approximately 1.2 nanometres, and a length of about 2 micrometers. Its volume is two zeptolitres (a zeptolitre is 10−21 litres), and around 2,000 molecules react in that space."
Britz graduated magna cum laude from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Materials Science in the UK at the University of Oxford, Christ Church, Oxford college in the Department of Materials, and completed his doctoral thesis, titled "Structure and Bonding of Fullerenes and Nanotubes", in 2005. During his work at Oxford, David Britz created more than ten new carbon nanotube- and fullerene-based materials and processes. He has been awarded Honorable Mention for the 2002 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.
Dave Britz also competed for Oxford University in the 2005 Varsity Boxing Match against Cambridge, earning a Full Blue.
Britz worked for the nanotechnology company Eikos in Franklin, Massachusetts, and developed carbon nanotube inks for highly conductive transparent coatings and circuits to be used in a variety of ways, including for use in solar cells, the commercial displays market, and military applications. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
David Britz participated in the 3M Strategic Business Development Summer Olympics in 2012.
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Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are tubes made of carbon with diameters typically measured in nanometers.
A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecule consists of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to seven atoms. The molecule may be a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, tube, or many other shapes and sizes. Graphene, which is a flat mesh of regular hexagonal rings, can be seen as an extreme member of the family.
Nanotechnology ("nanotech") is manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particular technological goal of precisely manipulating atoms and molecules for fabrication of macroscale products, also now referred to as molecular nanotechnology. A more generalized description of nanotechnology was subsequently established by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which defines nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers. This definition reflects the fact that quantum mechanical effects are important at this quantum-realm scale, and so the definition shifted from a particular technological goal to a research category inclusive of all types of research and technologies that deal with the special properties of matter which occur below the given size threshold. It is therefore common to see the plural form "nanotechnologies" as well as "nanoscale technologies" to refer to the broad range of research and applications whose common trait is size.
Nanoengineering is the practice of engineering on the nanoscale. It derives its name from the nanometre, a unit of measurement equalling one billionth of a meter.
Richard Errett Smalley was the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas. In 1996, along with Robert Curl, also a professor of chemistry at Rice, and Harold Kroto, a professor at the University of Sussex, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene, also known as buckyballs. He was an advocate of nanotechnology and its applications.
Sumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist and inventor, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and has since fueled intense research in the area of nanotechnology.
Nanomaterials describe, in principle, materials of which a single unit small sized between 1 to 100 nm measured in kelvin.
Pulickel Madhavapanicker Ajayan, known as P. M. Ajayan, is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering at Rice University. He is the founding chair of Rice University's Materials Science and NanoEngineering department and also holds joint appointments with the Department of Chemistry and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Prior to joining Rice, he was the Henry Burlage Professor of Material Sciences and Engineering and the director of the NYSTAR interconnect focus center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute until 2007. Known for his pioneering work of designing and carrying out the first experiments to make nanotubes intentionally.
Reshef Tenne is an Israeli scientist.
Charles M. Lieber is an American chemist and pioneer in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. In 2011, Lieber was recognized by Thomson Reuters as the leading chemist in the world for the decade 2000-2010 based on the impact of his scientific publications. Lieber has published over 400 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has edited and contributed to many books on nanoscience. He is the principal inventor on over fifty issued US patents and applications, and founded the nanotechnology company Nanosys in 2001 and Vista Therapeutics in 2007. He is known for his contributions to the synthesis, assembly and characterization of nanoscale materials and nanodevices, the application of nanoelectronic devices in biology, and as a mentor to numerous leaders in nanoscience. In 2012, Lieber was awarded Israel's Wolf Prize in Chemistry.
The history of nanotechnology traces the development of the concepts and experimental work falling under the broad category of nanotechnology. Although nanotechnology is a relatively recent development in scientific research, the development of its central concepts happened over a longer period of time. The emergence of nanotechnology in the 1980s was caused by the convergence of experimental advances such as the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 and the discovery of fullerenes in 1985, with the elucidation and popularization of a conceptual framework for the goals of nanotechnology beginning with the 1986 publication of the book Engines of Creation. The field was subject to growing public awareness and controversy in the early 2000s, with prominent debates about both its potential implications as well as the feasibility of the applications envisioned by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, and with governments moving to promote and fund research into nanotechnology. The early 2000s also saw the beginnings of commercial applications of nanotechnology, although these were limited to bulk applications of nanomaterials rather than the transformative applications envisioned by the field.
In nanotechnology, a carbon nanobud is a material that combines carbon nanotubes and spheroidal fullerenes, both allotropes of carbon, in the same structure, forming "buds" attached to the tubes. Carbon nanobuds were discovered and synthesized in 2006.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to nanotechnology:
Organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) are fabricated from thin films of organic semiconductors, such as polymers and small-molecule compounds, and are typically on the order of 100 nm thick. Because polymer based OPVs can be made using a coating process such as spin coating or inkjet printing, they are an attractive option for inexpensively covering large areas as well as flexible plastic surfaces. A promising low cost alternative to conventional solar cells made of crystalline silicon, there is a large amount of research being dedicated throughout industry and academia towards developing OPVs and increasing their power conversion efficiency.
Ajay Kumar Sood FNA, FASc, FNASc, FRS, FTWAS is an Indian physicist, researcher and holder of 2 US and 5 Indian patents, known for his pioneering research findings on graphene and nanotechnology. He is a Distinguished Honorary Professor of Physics at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. The Government of India honoured him in 2013, with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, for his contributions to the fields of science and technology. Sood was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2015.
Alan T. Charlie Johnson is an American physicist, professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Director of the Nano/Bio Interface Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Steven Strano is an American chemical engineer and the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is particularly interested in quantum-confined materials. Strano was appointed editor-in-chief of Carbon in 2016. In 2017, Strano was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering "for contributions to nanotechnology, including fluorescent sensors for human health and solar and thermal energy devices."
Baratunde A. Cola is a scientist and engineer specializing in carbon nanotube technology.
Andrew R. Barron is a British chemist, academic, and entrepreneur. He is the Sêr Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea University, and the Charles W. Duncan Jr.-Welch Foundation Chair in Chemistry at Rice University. He is the founder and director of Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University, which consolidates the energy research at the University with a focus on environmental impact and future security. At Rice University, he leads a Research Group and has served as Associate Dean for Industry Interactions and Technology Transfer.
Gurpreet Singh is an associate professor at Kansas State University in the department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering. He is endowed by the Harold O. and Jane C. Massey Neff Professorship in Mechanical Engineering. Singh was born in Ludhiana, India; he currently resides in the U.S.