........................................................................................................................................ iv Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1. Discovery of catalytic peptides for inorganic nanocrystal synthesis by a combinatorial phage display approa...

Colloidal nanocrystals consist of an inorganic crystalline core with organic ligands bound to the surface and naturally self-assemble into periodic arrays known as superlattices. This periodic structure makes superlattices promising for phononic crystal applications. To explore this potential, we use plane wave expansion methods to model the phonon band structure. We find that the nanoscale per...

For certain dopants, luminescence measurements allow one to distinguish between single-ion and pair-state dopant emission in a (semiconductor) host. In a bulk crystal the concentration of each of these dopant-states can be calculated from the dopant fraction f present in the material, and is found to correlate with luminescence measurements. However, for a nanocrystalline host-lattice, these co...

Native coordinating ligands acquired during the chemical synthesis of colloidal nanocrystals are optimized primarily for their ability to exert control over nanocrystal size, composition, morphology, and dispersibility, and not necessarily for their final application. In general, they are hydrophobic and highly insulating, and constitute a significant barrier for charge or ion transport in devi...