A Quest for Next Generation Low Dimensional Systems

Dr. Nuri Oncel

Department of Physics & Astrophysics
University of North Dakota
Grand Forks, ND   58202-7129

Technological development in the fabrication of integrated circuits suggests that in the near future the typical size of the individual components of these circuits will be scaled down from tens of nanometers to only a few nanometers. As it becomes possible to engineer such components, the next step will be the connection of these pieces in order to incorporate them into the circuit. Ideally speaking, this connection could be scaled down to wires of only one atom in diameter. Therefore, the fabrication of these connections and their physical properties are as important as the individual components. Today it is possible to create well defined low-dimensional structures on the nanometer scale by using various techniques.  Besides the technological necessities of producing these atomic chains, they are valuable substrates for the study of rather interesting properties of one-dimensional physics such as Peierls instability and Luttinger liquids. Self-assembly is considered to be an alternative technique to the conventional lithographic techniques which slowly approach their limit. The biggest advantage of this method is the ease of production of the well-defined, high quality structures even with rather complicated organic molecules. Another important advantage of self-assembly is the ability to produce structures that are stable in a rather wide temperature range.

Thus, we explore various materials ranging from 5d metals to porphyrins to make the next generation low dimensional systems.

Coffee and Cookies 3:30pm Witmer Hall Room 215