Alex Zettl is an American professor of experimental
condensed-matter physics. His research involving the properties of novel materials has produced significant advances in the field.
Biography
Zettl received a B.A. degree from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1978. He received a Ph.D. degree from
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
in 1983. He joined the faculty of the UCB Physics Department in 1983 without doing a post-doc. He is currently a Professor of Physics and a Senior Scientist at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...
. Beyond his scientific accomplishments, he is also a world traveller who has scaled several of the world's famous peaks.
Significant research results
He is part of a Nanotechnology group at UCB, the ''Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems'' He holds patents on the nanoradio, the nano mass sensor and other developments from this center's research.
The research of Zettl, Kenneth Jensen, Jeff Weldon and Henry Garcia culminated in a single nanotube mounted on the tip of a metal electrode. When an electric current is passed between that nanotube and another, shorter, nanotube mounted nearby, an FM radio-frequency signal can be sensed by the nanotube, and the signal is converted into an audible signal without any other circuitry required. This remarkable phenomenon was first described in the November 2007 issue of ''
Nano Letters'', a monthly publication of the
American Chemical Society
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...
. In that same issue, independent
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...
, researchers Peter Burke and Chris Rutherglen announced a similar result - sensing and demodulating an AM radio-frequency signal, although their apparatus included conventional circuitry for antenna and amplification.
Alex Zettl is a well-known condensed-matter physicist with many significant contributions to the field. When he was at UCLA, he (and his PhD advisor) discovered the charge density wave (CDW) and sliding CDW in several group of important materials (metal trichalcogenide, blue bronze). At the boom of high temperature superconductivity, Zettl also had some contribution in the study of superconductivity in carbon-based materials (C60 and doped C60). After that, Zettl and his group focuses their efforts on nanotubes, namely carbon nanotubes and boron nitride nanotubes. Alex Zettl is the first one to demonstrate the synthesis of boron nitride nanotubes. Since then he has continued contributing to develop the fields (synthesis, device fabrication and electron microscopy of nanotubes). Recently Alex Zettl focuses more on two-dimensional materials, namely graphene, hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) and metal dichalcogenide (TMDs). His work includes atomic resolution of structure of graphene and h-BN, their defects (grain boundaries, vacancies) and applications of 2-D materials (graphene loudspeaker). In 2015, Zettl was awarded R&D Award for the invention of Extended-Pressure Inductively Coupled (EPIC) Plasma system to large scale synthesis of high quality boron nitride nanotubes.
Honors and awards
*
Presidential Young Investigator Award (1984–1989)
*Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1984–1986)
*IBM Faculty Development Award (1985–1987)
*Miller Professorship (1995)
*Lucent Technologies Faculty Award (1996)
*Fellow of the American Physical Society (1999)
*Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Outstanding Performance Award (2004)
*R & D 100 Award (2004)
*James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials (2006)
*Miller Professorship (2007)
UCB Physics Dept. website
See also
* Nanomotor
A nanomotor is a molecular or nanoscale device capable of converting energy into movement. It can typically generate forces on the order of piconewtons.
While nanoparticles have been utilized by artists for centuries, such as in the famous Lycur ...
References
External links
The Zettl Research Group at UC Berkeley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zettl, Alex
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
University of California, Berkeley faculty
Carbon scientists
Fellows of the American Physical Society