We are delighted to welcome Dr Serena Corr as a new Associate Editor for Nanoscale.

Dr Corr is a Lecturer at the University of Glasgow, and her research focuses on the design, synthesis and structure determination of functional materials, in particular metal oxide nanostructures.

Dr Corr will be handling papers soon and so we encourage you to submit to her editorial office.

We are delighted to welcome Professor Dirk Guldi as a new Associate Editor for Nanoscale. Professor Guldi is one of the world-leading scientists in the field of charge transfer/nanocarbons. In particular, he is well-known for his contributions to the areas of charge-separation in donor-acceptor materials and construction of nanostructured thin films for solar energy conversion.

His research at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg involves the application of an arsenal of spectroscopic and microscopic techniques to a variety of molecular systems designed specifically to explore the nature of the chemical, physical and photophysical properties of new molecular hybrids, quantum dots, quantum rods and nanoparticles. He is also interested in designing and synthesising novel nanometer scale structures in combination with electron donors as integrative components for electron-donor-acceptor ensembles.

Prof. Guldi is handling papers and so we encourage you to submit to his editorial office.

Nanoscale is delighted that Professor Shouheng Sun has joined our Editorial Board as an Associate Editor.

Professor Sun is Professor of Chemistry at Brown University and has been the Associate Director of Brown’s Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation since 2008.

Professor Sun’s research in nanomaterials involves two related areas:

• Chemical synthesis and self-assembly of nanoparticles
• Construction and elaboration of functional nanoparticles and their assemblies for applications in biomedicine, catalysis, and information storage.

Read Prof. Sun’s recent Nanoscale Communication today:

Polyaspartic acid coated manganese oxide nanoparticles for efficient liver MRI
Ruijun Xing, Fan Zhang, Jin Xie, Maria Aronova, Guofeng Zhang, Ning Guo, Xinglu Huang, Xiaolian Sun, Gang Liu, L. Henry Bryant, Ashwinkumar Bhirde, Amy Liang, Yanglong Hou, Richard D. Leapman, Shouheng Sun and Xiaoyuan Chen
DOI: 10.1039/C1NR11242B

We welcome your submissions to Prof. Sun’s Editorial Office. Submit your best work to Nanoscale.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Rongchao Jin of Carnegie Mellon University has joined Nanoscale as an Associate Editor.

Prof. Jin’s research covers the synthesis, characterization, and applications of nanoparticles. His group develop chemical methods for synthesizing new types of inorganic nanoclusters and nanocrystals, hybrid nano-architectures, and inorganic/polymer nanocomposites. He is also very interested in the applications of nanoparticles in catalysis, optics, chemo- and bio-sensing, and photovoltaics.

Professor Jin was co-Guest Editor on the recent Nanoscale themed issue on Metallic Clusters which, according to his Editorial “offers a snapshot of the very diverse research work being carried out on metal clusters” from fundamental to applied research.

Read Prof. Jin’s popular review on gold nanoclusters and his recent articles in this area today:

Quantum sized, thiolate-protected gold nanoclusters
Rongchao Jin
DOI: 10.1039/B9NR00160C

Water-soluble Au₂₅(Capt)₁₈ nanoclusters: synthesis, thermal stability, and optical properties
Santosh Kumar and Rongchao Jin
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR30833A

Unexpected reactivity of Au₂₅(SCH₂CH₂Ph)₁₈ nanoclusters with salts
Manzhou Zhu, Gerentt Chan, Huifeng Qian and Rongchao Jin
DOI: 10.1039/C0NR00878H

We welcome your submissions to Prof. Jin’s Editorial Office. Submit your best work to Nanoscale.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Zhiyong Tang of the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, China and Roberto Salvarezza of the National University of La Plata, Argentina have both joined the Nanoscale Advisory Board.

Professor Roberto Salvarezza

Professor Salvarezza’s research is focused on scanning probe microscopies and surface physical chemistry, including the physical chemistry of molecular self-assemblies.

Read Prof. Salvarezza’s latest Nanoscale article today:

Self-assembly of thiolated cyanine aggregates on Au(111) and Au nanoparticle surfaces
Guillermo O. Menéndez, Emiliano Cortés, Doris Grumelli, Lucila P. Méndez De Leo, Federico J. Williams, Nicolás G. Tognalli, Alejandro Fainstein, María Elena Vela, Elizabeth A. Jares-Erijman and Roberto C. Salvarezza
DOI: 10.1039/C1NR11039J

Professor Zhiyong Tang

Professor Tang is interested in the application of functional nanomaterials in the fields of energy and the environment.

He recently review the latest progress in chiral inorganic nanoparticles in Nanoscale:

Chiral inorganic nanoparticles: origin, optical properties and bioapplications
Yunsheng Xia, Yunlong Zhou and Zhiyong Tang
DOI: 10.1039/C0NR00903B

One-step template-free synthesis of monoporous polymer microspheres with uniform sizes via microwave-mediated dispersion polymerization
Ming-Qiang Zhu, Gan-Chao Chen, Yun-Mei Li, Jun-Bing Fan, Ming-Feng Zhu and Zhiyong Tang
DOI: 10.1039/C1NR10920K

Nanoscale Associate Editor Professor Xiao Cheng Zeng’s latest discovery has featured in Chemistry World this week. Zeng and colleagues have calculated the structure of a stable carbon dication with a coordination number of 7, higher than any yet seen experimentally. 

Read the Chemistry World article:  

Carbon clusters score lucky seven

  

US and Chinese chemists say that they’ve calculated the structure of a stable carbon dication that would have a higher coordination number than any yet seen experimentally. Xiao Cheng Zeng from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and colleagues have found that a carbon surrounded with seven titanium atoms can fulfil the necessary stability criteria. ‘We examined all first-row transition-metal elements and most main group elements,’ Zeng tells Chemistry World. ‘Only titanium fits thus far.’ 

 Surrounding carbon with more than four other atoms moves beyond conventional two-centre, two-electron bonds to arrangements sharing fractional numbers of valence electrons. The current record largest cluster seen experimentally was a hexacoordinate carbon structure synthesised by Japanese researchers in 2008. But theoretical physical chemists are curious to see how much further coordination numbers might be pushed.

Read full article 

Professor Zeng handles submissions to Nanoscale in the computational and theoretical fields, he also has a specialist interest in nanoclusters, computational nanocatalysis and computer-aided design and study of nanostructured materials.

Submit to Xiao Cheng Zeng’s Editorial Office today.

Nanoscale’s newest Associate Editor Professor Xiao Cheng Zeng and collaborators in the US and China have reported a novel nanopore which has similar selective ion transport properties as the potassium ion channels found in nature. The work reported in Nature Communications could have potential applications in desalination technology or drug delivery.

Also check our Professor Zeng’s recent Nanoscale articles:

Investigating the structural evolution of thiolate protected gold clusters from first-principles
Yong Pei and Xiao Cheng Zeng
Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 4054-4072
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR30685A

Edge-decorated graphene nanoribbons by scandium as hydrogen storage media
Menghao Wu, Yi Gao, Zhenyu Zhang and Xiao Cheng Zeng
Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 915-920
DOI: 10.1039/C2NR11257D

Mn monolayer modified Rh for syngas-to-ethanol conversion: a first-principles study
Fengyu Li, De-en Jiang, Xiao Cheng Zeng and Zhongfang Chen
Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 1123-1129
DOI: 10.1039/C1NR11121C

Nanoscale is delighted to announce that Professor Xiao Cheng Zeng has been appointed as an Associate Editor for the journal. Prof. Zeng is the Ameritas Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, USA. He received his bachelor’s degree in Physics from Peking University in 1984 and his Ph.D. from Ohio State University in 1989. He pursued his postdoctoral research in physical chemistry at the University of Chicago and UCLA from 1989 to 1993.

His research interests include computational and theoretical study of liquids (water in particular), confined fluids, two-phase interfaces, and nanoclusters, as well as nanocatalysts and computer-aided design and study of nanostructured materials.

Read Professor Zeng’s recent articles in Nanoscale:

Investigating structural evolution of thiolate protected gold clusters from the first-principles
Yong Pei and Xiao Cheng Zeng
Nanoscale, 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2NR30685A

Edge-decorated graphene nanoribbons by scandium as hydrogen storage media
Menghao Wu, Yi Gao, Zhenyu Zhang and Xiao Cheng Zeng
Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 915-920, DOI: 10.1039/C2NR11257D

Mn monolayer modified Rh for syngas-to-ethanol conversion: a first-principles study
Fengyu Li, De-en Jiang, Xiao Cheng Zeng and Zhongfang Chen
Nanoscale, 2012, 4, 1123-1129, DOI: 10.1039/C1NR11121C

Photography courtesy of Megan Morr at Duke Photography

Co-Editor-in-Chief Jie Liu talks to Nanoscale about who has inspired him on his scientific journey so far and his ambitious plans to see Nanoscale being read across the globe.

Liu is the Jerry G. and Patricia Crawford Hubbard Professor of Chemistry at Duke University, USA and his research interests include carbon nanotubes, nanoelectronics, ZnO nanostructures and microporous carbon.

Professor Liu is now handling papers for Nanoscale. You can submit you high impact research to his Editorial Office.

Who inspired you to become a scientist?

My father. He was a high school chemistry teacher, and when I was really, really young he put the dream of becoming a scientist into my head. When I was young in China he started subscribing to scientific magazines. I started reading these articles and was amazed about what science can do and slowly he managed to sink this idea of becoming a scientist in my head and that just stayed.

How did you get involved in nanoscience?

In China when I was a college student with a chemistry major, I quickly realised that I liked physical chemistry a lot, and colloidal science was an area I got very interested in and choose as the topic of my undergraduate research project and then my Masters degree.

When I came to the US I was very lucky to get the chance to work with Charles Lieber on materials science and surface chemistry and we studied the atomic structure of very tiny domains of 2D crystals. That led me to be very interested in nanoscience.

When I was looking for a postdoc I had a chance to work with [Professor Richard E.] Smalley – before I applied for a position in his lab he came to Northeastern University in Boston to give a talk. I went there to listen to him talking about carbon nanotubes. He was such a good public speaker – the talk was great: very inspiring and interesting. I wrote him a letter: I am really interested in this, can you take me as a postdoc? And he did take me. I went to his lab and really started enjoying carbon nanotube research. I had a very exciting three years of post doc experience in Rick Smalley’s lab.

When I was looking for my own position, I found a Professor job at Duke University and decided to continue in the general field of carbon nanotubes and of course my research interests expanded beyond CNTs over the years– I am really interested in controlling the materials structure and properties at the nanoscale, so over the last 10 years we worked on CNTs, nanowires, nanoparticles, and surface nanolithography using an atomic force microscope. I really enjoy my research.

What do you think will be the next big breakthrough in your field?

In CNTs one direction is more fundamental: being able to control the helicity of the carbon nanotube is the next big thing. We are making progress along that direction, and there is theoretical work that suggests it might be possible but practically it is very difficult. It needs very precise instruments to be able to control the growth environment precisely, but I’m confident that if we have instrumentation much better than what we have now, we should be able to control the helicity of carbon nanotubes. Right now we can almost control the electronic properties of CNTs, we can make CNTs that are over 95% semiconducting – I think that is one of the directions for CNT research.

I really think nanoscience needs to be more influential and push the field forward at a faster pace in energy research – not just for energy capture, energy storage. Nanoscience is uniquely suited to solve all of these existing of these problems. It’s a very crowded field, many people are working in the field but progress is not that fast. I anticipate bigger breakthroughs in this field in the next couple of years, simply because of the amount of funding, the amount of people and the interest in this field. I think something will come up pretty soon.

What achievement are you most proud of?

The work we did that demonstrated that nanotubes can grow to extreme lengths, aligned by the gas flow; that is a milestone in the field. It demonstrated that if there is no external force that is stopping the growth of CNTs, nanotubes can grow really long and really fast. That was unexpected.

The recent work we did to selectively grow enriched semiconducting CNT arrays, I think with more work in this field we can definitely make the aligned CNT array a very good candidate for future electronic devices.

Another field that I’m very proud of but I’m not currently working on is the development of the electrochemical dip-pen nanolithography from my group. I think that opened the door for dip-pen nanolithography to become a more general, more versatile tool. It made people think about the chemistry underneath the AFM tip and enabled people to develop more AFM-based nanolithography technology.

What advice would you give to a young scientist?

I’m old now? <laughs> I learned from Smalley that if you treat science like your job it’s very hard and very time consuming, but if you treat science as a hobby, something you are very interested in, you want to dive in and play with it, you will have a different feeling about the work you are doing and you will fully enjoy it much more.

What are you most looking forward to most about being co-Editor-in-Chief of Nanoscale?

It’s a very unique opportunity. I was not looking to become Editor for a journal, but when Philip contacted me I looked at the opportunity and I thought, that’s a very good journal, it’s a very good opportunity, it’s my way of paying back to society because I’ve fully enjoyed my research experience in the lab for 10-15 years and I’ve published many papers with the help of different Editors. I appreciate their work, so I think I can get into their shoes and be able to help other people and to contribute to the field from a different direction. That’s what attracted me to this position and I think that with my experience in research, I can help the journal to become more successful by promoting great science and be able to contribute to the field at a different level.

What do you think Nanoscale has to offer authors?

I think Nanoscale is more international than journals by other publishers – that is something unique to Nanoscale. Nanoscale reaches a broader audience, the authors are more widely distributed across the whole world. I like the approach of RSC journals having people from different parts of the world contributing to the journal, like the distribution of Editors from the US, Asia and Europe. The Editors are experts in their field – I think that’s another advantage for the journal. Also the relationship with the Royal Society of Chemistry – that makes it very attractive.

What are your aspirations for Nanoscale?

One of my hopes is to see researchers at universities across the world reading the great new articles in Nanoscale every day. This will mean Nanoscale will become a journal that more people will read, more people will cite and more people will contribute to.