last updated: 8 July 2000

Llaguno, Marky

Marky Llaguno is currently taking his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. He obtained his Bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of the Philippines at Diliman in 1997. At Diliman, he worked in the Condensed Matter Physics Lab under the guidance of Professor Roland Sarmago doing research on Raman scattering from doped ceramic superconducting cuprates. Now at Penn, he is involved in research on carbon nanotubes -- cylindrical molecules made of carbon atoms, nanometers in diameter yet microns long. He is studying the thermal properties of single carbon nanotube molecules, in particular, their thermal conductivity and thermoelectric power.

Research

Carbon Nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes are molecules made from rolling a sheet of carbon atoms into a cylinder. The electronic properties of carbon nanotubes are derived from their geometry -- how you join the edges of the graphene sheet determines whether the molecule is semiconducting or metallic. Individual tubes have been demonstrated to act as rectifying diodes and transistors while junctions made from crossed tubes behave like tunnel and Schottky barriers. They are robust molecules -- they can be bent without getting broken. Furthermore, because of their geometry and size (a typical tube is only about 1.4 nanometers in diameter making them virtually 1D), the electrons and phonons in them to behave differently than when they are three dimensional.