David Carroll is a U.S. physicist

Physicist

A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...

 and nanotechnologist

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...

, Fellow of the Society of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University

Wake Forest University is a private, coeducational university in the U.S. state of North Carolina, founded in 1834. The university received its name from its original location in Wake Forest, north of Raleigh, North Carolina, the state capital. The Reynolda Campus, the university's main campus, is...

. He has contributed to the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology through his work in nanoengineered

Nanoengineering

Nanoengineering is the practice of engineering on the nanoscale. It derives its name from the nanometre, a unit of measurement equalling one billionth of a meter....

 cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 therapeutics, nanocomposite

Nanocomposite

A nanocomposite is as a multiphase solid material where one of the phases has one, two or three dimensions of less than 100 nanometers , or structures having nano-scale repeat distances between the different phases that make up the material...

-based display and lighting technologies, and high efficiency nanocomposite photovoltaics

Photovoltaics

Photovoltaics is a method of generating electrical power by converting solar radiation into direct current electricity using semiconductors that exhibit the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaic power generation employs solar panels composed of a number of solar cells containing a photovoltaic material...

.

Education

Carroll earned his BS

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

 (1985) in physics

Physics

Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...

 from NC State University (Raleigh, NC) and his PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 (1993) in physics from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 in (Middletown, CT) with Dr. Dale Doering (thesis advisor). Carroll's thesis examined the thermodynamics

Thermodynamics

Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...

 of charged defects in complex oxide

Oxide

An oxide is a chemical compound that contains at least one oxygen atom in its chemical formula. Metal oxides typically contain an anion of oxygen in the oxidation state of −2....

 materials. As a postdoctoral associate for Professor Dawn Bonnell at the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

 (Philadelphia), Carroll worked on the application of scanning probes

Scanning probe microscopy

Scanning Probe Microscopy is a branch of microscopy that forms images of surfaces using a physical probe that scans the specimen. An image of the surface is obtained by mechanically moving the probe in a raster scan of the specimen, line by line, and recording the probe-surface interaction as a...

 to size and dimension related phenomena in oxide supported metal nanoclusters

Nanoparticle

In nanotechnology, a particle is defined as a small object that behaves as a whole unit in terms of its transport and properties. Particles are further classified according to size : in terms of diameter, coarse particles cover a range between 10,000 and 2,500 nanometers. Fine particles are sized...

. From there Carroll became a research associate at the Max-Planck-Insitut für Metallforschung

Max Planck Society

The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes publicly funded by the federal and the 16 state governments of Germany....

 (MPI) in Stuttgart, Germany under the direction of Professor Manfred Rühle. His primary research was on nanoscale phenomena at metal

Metal

A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...

-ceramic

Ceramic

A ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetallic solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. Ceramic materials may have a crystalline or partly crystalline structure, or may be amorphous...

 interfaces using a combination of microscopy

Microscopy

Microscopy is the technical field of using microscopes to view samples and objects that cannot be seen with the unaided eye...

 techniques.

At the MPI Carroll first began working with carbon nanotubes and their variants. Specifically, Carroll was the first to identify the signature for one dimensional behavior in multiwalled nanotubes(the so called van Hove Singularities

Van Hove singularity

A Van Hove singularity is a kink in the density of states of a solid. The wavevectors at which Van Hove singularities occur are often referred to as critical points of the Brillouin zone...

) as well as the signatures for defect states for those systems. This work helped to open the door to the use of scanning probe spectroscopies

Spectroscopy

Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy. Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g., by a prism. Later the concept was expanded greatly to comprise any interaction with radiative...

 in understanding the electronics

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

 of low dimensional systems

Systems theory

Systems theory is the transdisciplinary study of systems in general, with the goal of elucidating principles that can be applied to all types of systems at all nesting levels in all fields of research...

.

Research

Carroll's research contributions have been in the areas of: Growth and assembly of novel nanostructures, Optics

Optics

Optics is the branch of physics which involves the behavior and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behavior of visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light...

 of nanostructures and Nano-photonics, Quantum

Quantum

In physics, a quantum is the minimum amount of any physical entity involved in an interaction. Behind this, one finds the fundamental notion that a physical property may be "quantized," referred to as "the hypothesis of quantization". This means that the magnitude can take on only certain discrete...

-functional properties of nanophase blends, Organic material nanocomposite devices and technologies including organic photovoltaics, lighting systems, and IR

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

 sensors, Biomedical-nanotechnology including smart therapeutics, hyperthermia

Hyperthermia

Hyperthermia is an elevated body temperature due to failed thermoregulation. Hyperthermia occurs when the body produces or absorbs more heat than it can dissipate...

 approaches to Cancer, advanced/responsive tissue scaffolding technology, and biological-technology signal transduction

Signal transduction

Signal transduction occurs when an extracellular signaling molecule activates a cell surface receptor. In turn, this receptor alters intracellular molecules creating a response...

.

In 1997 Carroll moved to Clemson University

Clemson University

Clemson University is an American public, coeducational, land-grant, sea-grant, research university located in Clemson, South Carolina, United States....

 (SC) as an assistant professor where he received early promotion and tenure

Tenure

Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...

 in the department of physics. While at Clemson he established a program in organic devices based upon carbon nanotube nanocomposites demonstrating enhanced lifetime and performance in organic light-emitting diode

Organic light-emitting diode

An OLED is a light-emitting diode in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compounds which emit light in response to an electric current. This layer of organic semiconductor material is situated between two electrodes...

s (OLED) for the first time. This work was among the first to establish that nanotube-based nanocomposite systems could be used to enhance a variety of organic device performance metrics.

In 2003, Carroll's group moved to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC to establish the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. This move allowed the research team to expand its work into the fields of biomedical nanotechnologies and to continue their work in nanocomposite organic devices such as photovoltaics. Carroll's team continues to push the state-of-the-art in performance of organic solar cells, having set performance records twice in recent years. The nanotechnology center at Wake Forest currently holds the world record for the highest efficiency organic solar cell.

Since becoming faculty, Carroll has published over 200 articles in scholarly journals. He has published 1 textbook on one dimensional metals, edited two books, written three book chapters, and holds 35 patents or patent filings. Carroll is a frequent speaker at international conferences with more than 100 invited talks in the past few years. He has been actively involved in four spin-off companies licensing or utilizing technologies from his labs.

External links

• Wake Forest Center for Nanotechnology