TOP-PUNT grants of NWO Chemical Sciences for Willem Kegel
No less than three of the accepted TOP-PUNT grants of NWO Chemical Sciences have been awarded to teams of chemistry researchers at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ. They will each receive two million euros to start new, challenging and innovative research lines. In total, NWO awarded four out of thirteen received research proposals. One of the three Utrecht research teams that will receive the grant is the Debye Institute: Willem Kegel (chemistry), Daniël Vanmaekelbergh (physics) and Andries Meijerink (chemistry).
Superficial Superstructures: Control of Colloidal Ordering at Interfaces
Two-dimensional semiconductors and metals with a superimposed geometry, i.e. a periodic array of holes on the nano- to micrometer scale, became renown very recently as a new and promising platform for materials with electronic and photonic properties controlled by geometry. The objective of the proposed research is to develop a widely usable bottom-up fabrication method for creating such twodimensional geometric semiconductors, metals or polymers. The method will be based on the use of colloidal particles with anisotropic bonding sites used in interface-templated self-assembly followed by oriented bonding, and – in some cases - atomic crystallization. This endeavor will require a detailed understanding of surface-mediated directional interactions between either nanocrystals or colloids.