With the modern demands of our society, the importance of investigating materials applicable in energy conversion and storage is of great importance, enhancing the efficiency to allow the progression and implementation of superior energy technology. It’s already been demonstrated in commercialized applications such as smart windows which have drastically reduced the cost of regulating building temperatures. This technology utilizes the surface plasmons of nanocrystals and we currently have a good understanding of characteristics for metal nanocrystals. However, metal oxide nanocrystals are not well understood but the metal oxide bulk are used in a wide variety of electronic applications. I will be investigating the characteristic of the surface plasmons of metal oxide nanocrystals and how we can manipulate the optical and conductive properties by adjusting parameters such as size and shape, as well as the effect of introducing dopant defects.
Advisor: Daniel Gamelin – Chemistry