A new generation of solar cells. Solar energy is the best energy source, in terms of environment and availability. This research project is developing new, inexpensive, but high performance solar cells by taking advantage of the excellent processibility of inorganic semiconductor nanocrystals and nanostructures. As the very promising labeling reagents for disease diagnostics and other biological recognition, the chemistry of synthesis and manipulation of semiconductor inorganic nanocrystals needs to be systematically studied, because it is the key point for the production at present. For example, a very important issue is to establish chemical methods for the preparation of inorganic nanocrystals with defined number of binding sites for the biological targets.
Crystallization is a very common process for materials preparation, characterization and processing.
However, the existing theories cannot predict and explain crystallization process systematically. Because of this, our understanding of growth mechanism of inorganic nanocrystals is very limited, which consequently makes it very difficult to design a controllable synthesis. However, because many properties of inorganic nanocrystals are highly size dependent, defining a crystal system in the nanometer regime is absolutely easier than in bulk size regime. Additionally, the surface energy, which is the driving force of any crystallization process, is very significant ONLY in the nanometer regime. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the growth of inorganic nanocrystals is possible.