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Jim Hutchison’s recent discovery holds great promise for research and development at the nanoscale. |
Featured on the cover of the Sept. 5 issue of Inorganic Chemistry, Jim Hutchison’s study reveals a new method for generating a library of functionalized gold particles both quickly and easily.
“Basic research of this type is the key to finding out what kinds of new electronic, optical and pharmaceutical products actually will come to market,” said Hutchison, who directs the university’s Materials Science Institute. Nanomaterials and technologies are projected to become a trillion dollar industry by 2010 and affect every industrial and consumer product sector.
One of the keys to understanding the size-dependent properties and applications of nanoparticles is generating collections of molecules, or libraries, which contain particles of various sizes for physical study. Earlier this year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Hutchison’s laboratory reported success in generating a similar library of larger particles.
Hutchison co-authored the Inorganic Chemistry article with doctoral student Gerd Woehrle. Woehrle is now finishing post-doctoral work at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
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