Christopher Murray

Faculty

Murray Group

University of Pennsylvania

Many collective phenomena in inorganic materials have natural length scales between 1 and 50 nm. Thus size control nanometer sized crystals or "nanocrystals" allows materials properties to be engineered. Nanocrystals display new mesoscopic phenomena found in neither bulk nor molecular systems. For example, the electronic, optical and magnetic properties semiconductors and magnetic nanocrystals strongly depend on crystallite size. Excited by the potential of these nanocrystal materials our mode of operation has been to develop leading synthetic methods and to push the resulting materials toward technology demonstrations. We try to blend the perspective of academic chemistry and materials science with technological perspective that I developed in over a decade of work in industrial research. We hope this mix of influences will help to align opportunities for applications with broader understanding of nanomaterials. Materials chemistry that embraces and harnesses these principles of self-assembly is at the frontier of materials science and become one of its cornerstones within our generation. Key challenges to the advance of this field will be met by advancing synthetic design, improved analytical tools and perhaps through forethought of environmental health and safety issues. Share in efforts to meet these challenges and thus influence the evolution of both materials science and chemistry.