The Center for Self-Assembled Nanostructures and Devices (CSAND) is part of a unique partnership among interdisciplinary faculty at Virginia Tech. The founding members have worked as a team since 1998 on numerous research activities, proposals, manuscripts, and scientific publications. CSAND includes several participating departments here at Virginia Tech and is sponsored by several outside organizations.

CSAND conducts research in the nano-science and technology arena. Activities range from fundamental research in the area of nanotechnology to experimental device development and laboratory demonstrations. CSAND activities also include educational and outreach activities.

The focus is controlling supramolecular architecture (selfassembly) at the nano/molecular level. Potential applications include: nanocomposites, nano-robotics, new drugs and drug delivery systems, chemical catalysts, opto-electronic devices, biosensors, and quantum computers. For example, researchers are developing ionically self-assembled monolayers (ISAM) photovoltaic devices (50 nm thick) fabricated for solar cell applications and nonlinear optical ISAM films for optical communications technologies.

Our research group has expertise in two broad research areas: new carbon-based fullerene materials and magnetic resonance spectroscopies, The latter area of interest involves spectroscopic studies utilizing nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP). The second area of research is the study of new carbon-based materials including fullerenes ("Buckyballs"), nanotubes, and endohedral metallofullerenes. Our fullerene laboratory at Tech (FLAT) developed the expertise to prepare, purify, and characterize various carbon fullerene, endohedral metallofullerene, and nano-tube samples. In the United States, FLAT leads in the separation of endohedral metallofullerenes. Currently, we have discovered and isolated more than 25 unique nanoclusters (e.g. La2@C72, Sc4@C82, Sc3N@C68, and ErScN@C68) and are actively characterizing their physical and chemical properties for a variety of specialized applications. A main thrust of our research effort is to provide polyhydroxylated and other nanomaterial derivatives for future medical applications, such as MRI contrast agents. Another important area of research involves the evaluation of chemical reactivity and selectivity differences due to the various types of metal atoms that can be encapsulated. FLAT presently has active collaborations with many other groups at Va Tech and 20 other laboratories world-wide.

For information about our results, please refer to the CSAND Results and Distinctions page.