| Abstract Scope |
A general area of significant ongoing research focusses on the physical properties of materials that are suitable for technological applications, whereby an understanding of structure, morphology and bonding is highly valuable for maximizing the “tunability” of specific physical properties to suit specific technological applications. Investigations into nano-scale effects is one aspect of such research. A subset of nano-scale materials research involves bulk dimensional nanocomposites. I will present some of our work in this area, whereby nanocrystals, synthesized in high yields as required to form bulk specimens, are processed and the transport properties evaluated both experimentally and theoretically. We’ve grown and processed binary, ternary, quaternary and even quinary nanocrystals with different compositions for these investigations. Our results indicate strong sensitivity to nano-grain size, composition, porosity, and doping. These results will also be discussed and compared with phenomenological models that describe the diffusion transport of carriers through nanogranular regions. |