Peter Eklund
Biography
Peter Eklund received his undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of California at Berkeley, his Ph.D. in solid state physics from Purdue University, and his post-doctoral training at MIT. He joined the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor, becoming full professor in 1986. In 1999, Prof. Eklund joined the Penn State physics department in the Eberly College of Science and is also on the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.
Prof. Eklund has contributed to more than 250 manuscripts in respected peer-reviewed journals, including several papers in Science and Nature, and two research monographs. He is a member of the American Physical Society, the American Carbon Society, the Materials Research Society, and the Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society for his research into the science and optical properties of various solid state forms of carbon. He serves on the Solid State Sciences Committee of the National Academy of Sciences.
Figure 1. (a) Bright-field TEM image of ZnS nanobelts. (b) TEM image of the cross section of a ZnS nanobelt. (c) HRTEM image of a ZnS nanobelt growing along a [001] direction. The inset shows a selective-area electron diffraction pattern from the same nanobelt. (d) 3D AFM image of a single ZnS nanobelt. (e) Cross-sectional profile shows the thickness of the nanobelt in (d) is 93 nm.
ZnS is an important direct band-gap semiconductor (~ 3.7 eV) that has attracted considerable attention due to its potential application in flat-panel displays, electroluminescent devices, infrared windows, sensors, and lasers. Recently, one-dimensional (1D) ZnS nanostructures, such as nanobelts and nanowires, have shown a great promise as functional and structural nanobuilding blocks in electronics, optoelectronics, and lasers.
