Boron nitride is a thermally and chemically resistant refractory compound of boron and nitrogen with the chemical formula BN. It exists in various crystalline forms that are isoelectronic to a similarly structured carbon lattice. The hexagonal form corresponding to graphite is the most stable and soft among BN polymorphs, and is therefore used as a lubricant and an additive to cosmetic products. The cubic variety analogous to diamond is called c-BN; it is softer than diamond, but its thermal and chemical stability is superior. The rare wurtzite BN modification is similar to lonsdaleite but slightly softer than the cubic form.
Pulickel Madhava Panicker Ajayan, known as P. M. Ajayan, is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering at Rice University, Houston. 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.
Nanobiotechnology, bionanotechnology, and nanobiology are terms that refer to the intersection of nanotechnology and biology. Given that the subject is one that has only emerged very recently, bionanotechnology and nanobiotechnology serve as blanket terms for various related technologies.
As the world's energy demand continues to grow, the development of more efficient and sustainable technologies for generating and storing energy is becoming increasingly important. According to Dr. Wade Adams from Rice University, energy will be the most pressing problem facing humanity in the next 50 years and nanotechnology has potential to solve this issue. Nanotechnology, a relatively new field of science and engineering, has shown promise to have a significant impact on the energy industry. Nanotechnology is defined as any technology that contains particles with one dimension under 100 nanometers in length. For scale, a single virus particle is about 100 nanometers wide.
Alex K. Zettl is an American experimental physicist, educator, and inventor.
Alexander A. Balandin is an electrical engineer, solid-state physicist, and materials scientist best known for the experimental discovery of unique thermal properties of graphene and their theoretical explanation; studies of phonons in nanostructures and low-dimensional materials, which led to the development of the field of phonon engineering; investigation of low-frequency electronic noise in materials and devices; and demonstration of the first charge-density-wave quantum devices operating at room temperature.
Nanoneedles may be conical or tubular needles in the nanometre size range, made from silicon or boron-nitride with a central bore of sufficient size to allow the passage of large molecules, or solid needles useful in Raman spectroscopy, light emitting diodes (LED) and laser diodes.
Potential graphene applications include lightweight, thin, and flexible electric/photonics circuits, solar cells, and various medical, chemical and industrial processes enhanced or enabled by the use of new graphene materials.
In materials science, the term single-layer materials or 2D materials refers to crystalline solids consisting of a single layer of atoms. These materials are promising for some applications but remain the focus of research. Single-layer materials derived from single elements generally carry the -ene suffix in their names, e.g. graphene. Single-layer materials that are compounds of two or more elements have -ane or -ide suffixes. 2D materials can generally be categorized as either 2D allotropes of various elements or as compounds.
A two-dimensional semiconductor is a type of natural semiconductor with thicknesses on the atomic scale. Geim and Novoselov et al. initiated the field in 2004 when they reported a new semiconducting material graphene, a flat monolayer of carbon atoms arranged in a 2D honeycomb lattice. A 2D monolayer semiconductor is significant because it exhibits stronger piezoelectric coupling than traditionally employed bulk forms. This coupling could enable applications. One research focus is on designing nanoelectronic components by the use of graphene as electrical conductor, hexagonal boron nitride as electrical insulator, and a transition metal dichalcogenide as semiconductor.
Graphene-Boron Nitride nanohybrid materials are a class of compounds created from graphene and boron nitride nanosheets. Graphene and boron nitride both contain intrinsic thermally conductive and electrically insulative properties. The combination of these two compounds may be useful to advance the development and understanding of electronics.
Kenneth L Shepard is an American electrical engineer, nanoscientist, entrepreneur, and the Lau Family Professor of Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science (Columbia). Shepard was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.
Boron nitride nanosheet is a crystalline form of the hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN), which has a thickness of one atom. Similar in geometry as well as physical and thermal properties to its carbon analog graphene, but has very different chemical and electronic properties – contrary to the black and highly conducting graphene, BN nanosheets are electrical insulators with a band gap of ~5.9 eV, and therefore appear white in color.
There are many water purifiers available in the market which use different techniques like boiling, filtration, distillation, chlorination, sedimentation and oxidation. Currently nanotechnology plays a vital role in water purification techniques. Nanotechnology is the process of manipulating atoms on a nanoscale. In nanotechnology, nanomembranes are used with the purpose of softening the water and removal of contaminants such as physical, biological and chemical contaminants. There are variety of techniques in nanotechnology which uses nanoparticles for providing safe drinking water with a high level of effectiveness. Some techniques have become commercialized.
Jean-Pierre Leburton is the Gregory E. Stillman Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. He is also a full-time faculty member in the Nanoelectronics and Nanomaterials group of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He is known for his work on semiconductor theory and simulation, and on nanoscale quantum devices including quantum wires, quantum dots, and quantum wells. He studies and develops nanoscale materials with potential electronic and biological applications.
Mahmooda Sultana is a Bangladeshi-American scientist working for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She leads a team which won a $2 million technology development award for a nanomaterial-based detector platform in 2019. Sultana became a NASA research engineer in 2010. She received her PhD in chemical engineering in 2010 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and BSc in chemical engineering and mathematics from University of Southern California summa cum laude. She joined NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2010. She has led the development of graphene-based detectors at NASA Goddard. Her research interests include graphene, nanomaterials, micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMs) devices, and sensors.
Two dimensional hexagonal boron nitride is a material of comparable structure to graphene with potential applications in e.g. photonics., fuel cells and as a substrate for two-dimensional heterostructures. 2D h-BN is isostructural to graphene, but where graphene is conductive, 2D h-BN is a wide-gap insulator.
Deji Akinwande is a Nigerian-American professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering with courtesy affiliation with Materials Science at the University of Texas at Austin. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2016 from Barack Obama. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the African Academy of Sciences, the Materials Research Society (MRS), and the IEEE.
Sarah Jane Haigh is a Professor in the School of Materials at the University of Manchester. She investigates nanomaterials using transmission electron microscopy, including two-dimensional materials such as graphene.
Ramakrishna Podila is an Indian-born American physicist and nanomaterials researcher. He is currently an associate professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Clemson University and is the director of the Clemson Nano-bio lab. He is known for his interdisciplinary research at the interface of physics, biology, and nanoscience. His lab integrates the principles of condensed matter physics, optical spectroscopy, and physiological chemistry to understand physics at the nanoscale and nano-bio interfaces. He became a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in July 2024.
