ELENA SHEVCHENKO, 32

摘要

Elena shevchenko is a master at making nanoparticles and assembling them into precise structures with useful properties. Materials made from the nanocrystals created with her methods could lead to ultra-efficient solar cells, tiny but powerful magnets, super-dense hard disks, and faster computers.rnTrained as a chemist in Belarus, the University of Hamburg in Germany, and Columbia University in New York, Shevchenko has found better ways to make nanoparticles out of metallic compounds; she's produced lead tel-luride, cadmium selenide, and cobalt-platinum particles, among others. She has also developed a technique forrnassembling these nanoparticles into "superlattices" orderly crystal structures. Paul Alivisatos, a nanotech pioneer and interim director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, calls Shevchenko "the best grower of nanocrystals in the world today."