Papers by Penn State Nano Researchers Among Top 20 Most Read
Craig Grimes
Among the top twenty most-accessed articles in the American Chemical Society’s Nano Letters in the first half of 2005 are two papers by Penn State authors. Craig Grimes, professor of electrical engineering, and collaborators from Penn State’s Department of Electrical Engineering, and Department of Materials Science and Engineering reported a highly efficient method of splitting water to produce hydrogen using titania nanotube arrays. By carefully controlling the thickness of the nanotube walls, Grimes et al were able to produce the highest reported hydrogen generation rate for a titania-based photoelectrochemical cell. Hydrogen fuel cells are one of the key components in the development of the proposed hydrogen-based economy. Co-authors, all from Penn State, were Gopal K. Mor, Karthik Shankar, Maggie Paulose, and Oomman K. Varghese.
Peter Eklund
Peter Eklund, Penn State professor of physics, was the main author of a paper showing for the first time the evolution of phonon confinement in silicon nanowires. Phonons play an important role in many of the properties of materials, such as electrical and thermal conductivity. Confined quantum structures can have unusual optical, electrical, and thermal characteristics, which could be used to develop novel thermoelectric and optical electronic devices. Eklund collaborated with K.W. Adu, H.R. Gutierrez, and U.J. Kim, all of Penn State, and G.U. Sumanasekera, University of Louisville, Louisville, Kentucky. Both Eklund and Grimes are among the 200 faculty members in the Materials Research Institute, the focus of materials research at Penn State, which provides support and facilities to faculty from 15 departments and five colleges across the University.
