Synthesis of Nanomaterials

S. Noor Mohammad was born in the village of Paruldihi, West Bengal, India, and graduated from Golgram High School with the highest distinction. He was one of the top 20 graduating students among 1,760,000 students who were examinees at the School Final Examination in the entire West Bengal State Board of Secondary Education, West Bengal, India. He obtained his B.Sc. with Honors in Physics from Midnapore College (University of Calcutta), his M.Sc. in Physics from North Bengal University, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India, his PhD in Physics (Chemical and Solid-State Physics) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, and his D.Sc. degree in Physics from the University of Calcutta. Following his D.Sc., he came to the USA in September of 1979, where he carried out extensive postdoctoral research in materials science and engineering at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He had been with the IBM Semiconductor Research and Development Center in New York before moving to Howard University in Washington, DC. He became Professor of Electrical Engineering at Howard University, where he founded externally funded large Nanomaterials Science and Engineering Research Program. He is currently retired and affiliated with a small, self-established non-profit organization, Sciencotech.

Introduction.- Nanomaterials Synthesis Routes.- Catalyst Nanoparticles.- Synthesis and Pre-Synthesis Occurrences.- Vapor-Solid-Liquid (VLS) Growth Mechanism.- Vapor-Solid-Solid (VSS) Growth Mechanism .- Vapor-Solid (VS) Growth Mechanism.- Solution and Supercritical Fluid Based Growth Mechanisms.- Solid-Liquid-Solid (SLS) Growth Mechanism.- Oxide-Assisted Growth (OAG) Mechanism.- Self-Catalytic Growth (SCG) Mechanism.- Vapor-Quasiliquid (Quasisolid)-Solid (VQS) Growth Mechanism.- Catalyst-Mediated VQS Growth Mechanism.- Catalyst-Free VQS Growth Mechanism.- Simple Theoretical Model for VQS Growth Mechanism.- The Universal, Versatile Growth Mechanism.- Conclusions.