Editor’s Choice in Science: Professor Judy Yang’s Crystalline Transformations in Nanoparticles

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH NEWS RELEASE

Contact: B. Rose Huber, University of Pittsburgh, www.news.pitt.edu; rhuber@pitt.edu]

PITTSBURGH  (August 15, 2013) ... A research article by  Judith C. Yang, PhD , the Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering within Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering, was selected as an  Editor's Choice  in the Aug. 9 issue of  Science , a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to showcasing scientific research. Editors chose Yang's article, "Non-Crystalline-to-Crystalline Transformations in Pt Nanoparticles," from the July 19 edition of the  Journal of the American Chemical Society . 

Together with her team, Yang studied the structure of platinum nanoparticles using a combination of mathematical equations, microscopes, and x-rays. After examining more than 3,000 nanoparticles, she was able to clearly distinguish between non-crystalline and crystalline nanoparticles, finding that not a single size marked the transition between the two. This research is of broad interest, Yang notes, as the transformational properties of nanoparticles could be useful in a variety of technological platforms. 

The full text of Yang's article is available here. 

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