Mildred S. Dresselhaus receives Kavli Nanoscience Prize
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Mildred S. Dresselhaus receives Kavli Nanoscience Prize
M
ildred S. Dresselhaus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has received the 2012 Kavli Prize in Nanoscience “for her pioneering contributions to the study of phonons, electron–phonon interactions, and thermal transport in nanostructures.” For more than five decades, Dresselhaus has made multiple advances in helping to explain why the properties of materials structured at the nanoscale can vary significantly from those of the same materials at larger dimensions. As early as the 1960s, Dresselhaus led one of the first groups that explored carbon materials that form the basis for two-dimensional (2D) graphene and one-dimensional carbon nanotubes. These early experiments helped to map out the electronic band structure of these materials, critical to further understanding the unique properties they might possess. Dresselhaus studied intercalated 2D graphene sheets and provided important insights into the properties of not only
nescence intensity on excitation energy at threshold levels, and a very low CQDVCSEL threshold. The researchers said that their results
represent a significant step toward fullcolor, single-material lasers. Rosalía Serna
2D graphene, but also of the interactions between graphene and the surrounding materials. Her early work on carbon fibers, beginning in the 1980s, provided Dresselhaus with the understanding and perspective to postulate the existence and unusual attributes of 1D “single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs)” years in advance of their actual discovery. A key prediction included the possibility that SWNTs could behave as either a metal or a semiconductor, depending on the chirality. Dresselhaus and co-workers said that nanotubes can be viewed as arising from the folding of a single sheet of carbon. They showed that this rearrangement of their structure controlled their properties. Through her studies of the fundamental physics of carbon-based solids, Dresselhaus laid the foundation for knowledge that has been integral to today’s nanoscience of carbon. Dresselhaus studied the transport and optical properties of nanostructured matter through experimental techniques providing unprecedented microscopic understanding. Regarding carbon nanostructures, she pioneered Raman spectroscopy as a sensitive tool for the characterization of materials one atomic layer in wall thickness, namely carbon nanotubes and graphene. Diameter selective resonance enhancement led to the observation of Raman spectra from one single nanotube. The high sensitivity of Raman spectroscopy to diameter and chirality made the technique the prime method for the characterization of carbon nanotubes. Materials are held together by electrons shared between atoms. When the energy of an electron in a solid is al-
tered, the local bonding of the solid is perturbed, resulting in a change in the position of the atoms that make up the solid. In nanoscale materials, the spatial extent of electrons and phonons can be modulated, leading to
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