Some Recent Results from Zinc Oxide and Carbon Nanostructures: Fundamentals and Applications

Magnus Willander
Department of Science and Technology
Linköping University, Sweden

Friday, June 1, 2009 at 3:00pm
Engr IV Room 57-124

Abstract
This talk deals with our last results on nanostructures in Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and carbon, like graphene and tubes. I will start with a short description of different growth techniques we use and discuss some of their typical properties. After this I will start with applications: The first one is in photonics. Light emitting diodes based on hybrid structures like ZnO/polymer, ZnO/SiC, ZnO/GaN and ZnO/Si. Particular the possibilty for large area applications will be taken up. But also optical properties of ZnO nanotubes and coupled graphene layers will be discussed. The second applications will be on nanobiology. Biosensors with extended gate (MOS) for glucose and Calcium sensing, measuring the cell membrane potential, and intra cellular measurement of Calcium and pH will be demonstrated. The third application will be on nanomechanics, particular mechanical properties and applications with ZnO nanowires and tubes and carbon nanotubes (double wall). The fourth and last point will be collective phenomena like Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity of exciton-polaritons in nanostructures.

Biography
Magnus Willander received his M.Sc. in physics and mathematics from Lund University in 1974, M.Sc. in engineering physics from Uppsala University in 1976, in economics from Stockholm University in 1977 and PhD in physics from Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm in 1984. During this period he also worked during five years as a circuit desiger for Philips Corp. and Nobel Industries. From 1985 to 1995 he was a senior lecturer in physics in Linköping University, where in in the 80s demonstrated one of the first Si/SiGe HBTs and polymer FETs and started up silicon carbide research, materials and devices. In the late 80s and in the beginning of the 90s Willander contributed to the research on tunneling devices and infrared physics and technology. In the mid of the 90s Willander started also research on multidimensional stochastic differential equations. In 1995 he was appointed to chair professor in nanophysics and mesoscopic physics in Gothenburg University. There he continued his earlier research and extended it to BEC in nanostructures and nanobiology. For example Willander demonstrated the first single molecule trapping in water and theory on supersolid for few electron systems In the beginning of 2000 he started the research on zinc oxide nanostructures, which during the last years he has focused on. He was in 2005 appointed to full professor in Linköping University. Prof. Willander has also been guest professor severval times in Tokyo Institute of Technology where he in the 90s worked on room temperature SETs in silicon. Willander is also since 2006 guest professor in Gothenburg University. His research interest has all the years been a mixture between theory, experiments and applications. Willander has been project leader of many European research projects. For four projects as a coordinator (projects on spin relaxation, lightning by nanostructures, manipulation of molecules by nanostructures and on II-VI materials). Willander has published around 900 scientific articles in international scientific journals and 7 books in the above mentioned areas. He also holds several patents and have started up two companies.