Two internationally acclaimed experts in the exciting and promising new field of nanotechnology, Drs. Ray Baughman and Wilson Ho, will give lectures on the subject at The University of Texas at Dallas this month.
Dr. Baughman, a fellow at Honeywell International, formerly Allied Signal, will speak on Thursday, April 12 at 3 p.m. in the seminar room (MC 2.410) on the second floor of the Eugene McDermott Library. A reception will follow at 4 p.m. in Green Commons. Dr. Ho, who is a Donald Bren Professor of Physics, Astronomy and Chemistry at the University of California at Irvine, will lecture at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 26, also in the seminar room on the second floor of the library. The lectures are free and open to the public.
Nanotechnology, primarily in the research stage at this point, is one of science’s newest frontiers. By literally fusing atoms and molecules together, scientists hope to be able to make major strides in medicine, computer science and many other areas. The two lectures are being jointly sponsored by Zyvex Corporation of Richardson, the first molecular nanotechnology company in the United States, and three of the university’s major components — The School of Natural Science and Mathematics, The Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and The Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies.
“Nanotechnology is clearly one of the most exciting areas where science and technology intersect and overlap,’ said Dr. Richard Caldwell, dean of UTD’s School of Natural Science and Mathematics. “It is not surprising that the best people in the field, such as Dr. Baughman and Dr. Ho, are known to both scientists and engineers. I am delighted that those two groups are collaborating on this campus.”
Dr. John Ferraris, chairman of the Chemistry Department at UTD, called Baughman and Ho “two of the superstars in the area of material science.”
“I have known Ray professionally for a long time,” Ferraris said. “His recent creative work on nanoscience is absolutely cutting-edge, as is Dr. Ho’s. I am delighted that they are coming to UTD to interact with our students, faculty and the technology community in the Telecom Corridor (r). ”
James Von Ehr, president and chief executive officer of Zyvex Corporation, said, “Ray’s record of research and his publication history is phenomenal. And Dr. Ho has demonstrated one of the fundamental principles of molecular nanotechnology, performing chemistry with a scanning probe microscope tip. Their work is an inspiration to us, and we are delighted to co-host their visits here.”
“We are truly honored to have Ray and Wilson come to lecture at UTD,” said Dr. Da Hsuan Feng, vice president for research and graduate education at the university. “They unquestionably are two of the leaders of the red-hot area of nanotechnology, a field which is scientifically rich in content and possesses great promise on the economic front.”
Dr. William Osborne, dean of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, added, “This is an area where there can be synergistic rapid growth for our school and the School of Natural Science and Mathematics, and for the Telecom Corridor (r) of northern Texas.”
Baughman has a Ph.D. in the area of materials science from Harvard University and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Institute of Chemists as well as an Academician of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He serves on the editorial board of Synthetic Metals, the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science, and has 50 U.S. patents and 173 publications with more than 6,300 citations. His accolades include the Chemical Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Chemists (1995) and the Cooperative Research Award in Polymer Science and Engineering (American Chemical Society, 1996). In addition, he received major AlliedSignal Technical Achievement Awards For Outstanding Contributions to AlliedSignal, Inc
Baughman’s research and development activities are in the areas of nanotechnology; photonic crystals; sensors and actuators; ferroelectrics; novel forms of carbon (especially carbon nanotubes); conducting polymers; solid-state reactions; electrochemical processes and devices; materials with unusual mechanical properties; and the design, synthesis, and application of materials with novel electrical, optical, or magnetic properties. Baughman currently is program leader for $7 million in government contracts that he won for work on frontier materials in the nanotechnology area, as well as leader or co-leader for about a million dollars in research work per year in Honeywell-funded programs.
Ho received B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemistry from California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His graduate school mentors were Professors E. Ward Plummer, a distinguished experimental physicist currently at the University of Tennessee, and J. Robert Schrieffer, a theoretical physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his work on superconductivity. Taught by these two world-class physicists, one experimental and one theoretical, Ho’s work in the past two decades is characterized by exceedingly sophisticated, almost dizzying, techniques, laced with profound theoretical underpinnings.
Ho was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in 1981, elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1995, and awarded an Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S. Scientists in 1997 and the Bonner Chemie Prize in 2000. Between 1980 and 2000, Ho was a member of the faculty at Cornell University. In 2000, he moved to the University of California, Irvine, where he focuses on the continuing exploration of single atoms and molecules with subÅngström resolution.
In 1998, Dr. Ho and his collaborators succeeded in performing inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy and microscopy on a single adsorbed molecule with single bond sensitivity. By combining manipulation and imaging with vibrational spectroscopy, their work opened up the possibility of investigating molecular motions, energy transfer, intermolecular interactions, chemical transformations, and electrical conductivity at the single molecule level and achieving chemical control at the spatial limit.
Zyvex Corporation, located in Richardson, Texas, was founded in 1997 with the mission to become the leader in flexible, affordable, molecular manufacturing. Employing 35 researchers and support personnel in its 20,400-square-foot facility, Zyvex performs research in positionally controlled molecular assembly as well as MEMS-based system development leading towards flexible, cheap nanomanipulation. In addition to partnerships with Standard MEMS, Inc., and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Automation Technologies (CAT), Zyvex currently funds research at several southwestern universities, including The University of Texas at Dallas.
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls approximately 6,500 undergraduate and 4,500 graduate students. The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs.