Cao receives NSF CAREER Award

Prof Charles Cao has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation.  The CAREER program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. CAREER awardees are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their institution.

Cao’s CAREER project, “Position-Controlled Doping of Semiconductor Nanocrystals,” is funded at about $500,000 for five years from the Solid-State and Materials Chemistry Program of NSF.   The CAREER project will develop a general approach for making high-quality semiconductor nanocrystals doped with position-controlled impurities.  These nanocrystals are a new class of doping-based nanostructures, which are important to the development of technological applications in biomedical diagnosis, photocatalysts, solar cells, LEDs, spintronic devices, etc.

Cao joined the University of Florida faculty in August, 2003.  He has already received an award from the Office of Navel Research (ONR) for a study on the mechanistic understanding of nanocrystal formation.  Cao’s research focuses on addressing the problems that are at the interface of nanochemistry and bio-analytical chemistry.  In particular, his research starts from three directions: nanocrystal synthesis, nanocrystal assembly, and nanocrystals for use as biological markers.