Chemistry and Medicinal Chemistry

Nano Electronics, Devices and Sensors

Nano-technological applications such as nano electronic devices and sensors offer tremendous opportunity and challenges for researchers.  With unique optical, magnetic, electrical and mechanical properties - all occurring at the nanoscale - these materials have properties that can vary with length scale, changing continuously or instantly. Nanodevices are critical enablers that will allow mankind to exploit the ultimate technological capabilities of electronic, magnetic, mechanical, and biological systems. While the best examples of nanodevices at present are clearly associated with the semiconductor industry, the potential for such devices is much broader. Nanomaterials-based sensors have several benefits in sensitivity and specificity over sensors made from traditional materials. Nanosensors can have increased specificity because they operate at a similar scale as natural biological processes, allowing functionalization with chemical and biological molecules, with recognition events that cause detectable physical changes. Nanosensors can also potentially be integrated with nanoelectronics to add native processing capability to the nanosensor.