SCIENCE AT THE SHINE DOME canberra 7 - 9 may 2008

Awards and admission of new Fellows

Thursday, 8 May 2008

Pawsey Medal

Dr Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov
School of Physics, University of Sydney and CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering

Ken Ostrikov is the youngest-ever achiever of the Doctor of Science degree and full professorship in Ukraine. Since 1997, he has won the Best Young Scientist of Ukraine Award of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and six prestigious research fellowships to work in top research universities of the UK, Germany, Japan, Singapore and Australia. He is a leader of the plasma nanoscience team at the University of Sydney and the associated international network of researchers from 15 countries, a visiting professor of five universities in Europe, China, Singapore and India, and was recently appointed a Chief Executive Officer Science Leader of CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering. Ken’s expertise is in the physics of low-temperature plasmas and nanoscale synthesis for various industrial applications.

Plasma nanoscience: The architectured nanoworld from nanoelectronics to astrophysics and the origin of life

Present-day fabrication of nanoscale devices are either based on ‘top-down’ approaches that are rapidly nearing their physical limits or on ‘trial and error’-based ‘bottom-up’ techniques with very limited controls. Our research aims to develop new techniques for the creation of self-organised architectures at the atomic level. We investigate basic phenomena behind specific and most effective plasma-related controls for better, cheaper fabrication of complex nanoarchitectures, their ordered self-organised and interconnected arrays and ultimately elements of nanodevices. This talk reveals how nature's mastery works in the assembly of nanometre-sized particles in the universe via the astronucleosynthesis and ion-induced nucleation pathway and in possible creation of building blocks of life via abiotic synthesis of organic molecules under primordial Earth conditions.