 Dream : Faculty : Nanomaterials : Jonathan Spanier
Jonathan Spanier
Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Faculty web page
Synthesis and Characterization of Smart Oxide Nanostructures
Many properties of material (e.g. physical, electronic, optical, magnetic) become significantly altered with reduced dimension and size. An understanding of the size and shape-dependent properties in nanocrystalline material systems is necessary to achieve further miniaturization of devices and will lead to new types of technologies. Oxide perovskites find applications in
piezoelectric sensors and actuators, advanced magnetic storage devices, ferroelectric memory devices, and in nonlinear optical components. Dr. Spanier has successfully prepared single-crystalline, perovskite oxide nanowires using methods that can be extended to a range of other perovskite systems. In order to address the difficulties in probing size-dependent properties of
nanostructures due to size dispersion, Dr. Spanier has developed a means of individually probing the properties of nanostructures using variable-temperature scanning probe microscopy (SPM) (see Fig. 5).
Example REU Project: One area of ongoing research is the need to understand how control of the chemical synthesis preparation conditions can be used to tune effectively the geometry, shape, composition, and hence, the properties of the oxide nanostructures. REU participants will work with Dr. Spanier in synthesizing perovskite oxide nanostructures and in characterizing them using SPM and Raman scattering spectroscopy. The REU participants will gain experience with some of the emerging building blocks and measurement and diagnostic tools of nanotechnology.
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