Peidong Yang Wins Waterman Award

Peidong Yang, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and deputy director of Berkeley's Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems, has been selected by the National Science Foundation to receive the 2007 Alan T. Waterman Award, given annually to an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the foundation. Yang received a medal and will receive $500,000 over a three-year period to conduct research in his field.

Yang's work is in the area of one-dimensional semiconductor nanostructures and their applications in nanophotonics, nanoelectronics, energy conversion, and nanofluidics. He and his research team developed novel, efficient ways to synthesize nanowires and complex nanowire arrays.

By controlling the self-assembly of the wires and their orientation, Yang and his colleagues have created devices such as a 100-nm-wide wire that fires ultraviolet laser light; a patchwork of oriented nanowires that show promise for shrinking the next generation of computer chips; and a nanowire array that has properties similar to those of solar panels but could cost far less and is manufactured by an environmentally friendly process.