Svetlana Neretina and her research team are advancing the application, understanding, and material fabrication methods for noble metal nanostructures, an extraordinary class of materials that are used in the diagnosis and treatment of disease, environmental remediation, chemical synthesis, and sensing technologies. Fabrication methods such as nanoimprint lithography, self-assembly, and solution-phase redox reactions are used in combination to define periodic arrays of complex noble metal nanostructures that collectively express the photo- and chemically active surfaces needed to prototype photovoltaic and sensing devices. These same nanostructures are also being investigated as catalysts for hydrogen generation and as photocatalysts capable of promoting green chemical syntheses powered by sunlight. Emphasis is also placed on the development of new instrumentation and in situ monitoring tools needed to fabricate these nanomaterials in a manner that is responsive to the scalability and throughput needs of a manufacturing setting.
