Colloidal nanocrystals provide a powerful platform for the synthetic design of materials, as their properties can be tuned through precise control of size, shape, composition, and surface chemistry. This level of control has enabled a shift beyond single-particle behavior toward complex architectures such as heterostructures, doped systems, and assembled superlattices, where collective phenomena are now emerging.
The integration of nanocrystals into functional materials and devices is driving progress in energy conversion, light emission, sensing, and quantum technologies. However, these developments require a deeper understanding of structure–property relationships across multiple length and time scales, alongside scalable and sustainable synthetic approaches.
This symposium will bring together researchers working on the synthesis, characterization, theory, and application of colloidal nanocrystals. Emphasis will be placed on emerging and cross-cutting directions, including synthetic control, surface and interface engineering, electronic and optical properties, and the role of nanocrystal assemblies in enabling collective and functional behaviors. The symposium aims to connect experimental and theoretical insights with applications, advancing nanocrystal-based materials for sustainable technologies.
- Synthetic design and controlled growth of colloidal nanocrystals
- Surface chemistry, ligands, and interface engineering
- Doped, heterostructured, and hybrid nanocrystals
- Nanocrystal assemblies and superlattices
- Electronic structure and excitonic processes
- Charge, energy, and spin transport
- Advanced and in situ characterization techniques
- Theoretical modeling and multiscale simulations
- Optical and quantum phenomena in nanocrystals
James Utterback’s research focuses on ultrafast optical spectroscopy and microscopy of energy relaxation and transport in materials for optoelectronic, photochemistry, and phase change applications.
CNRS Researcher | Researcher; Institute of Nanosciences of Paris; Sorbonne University | 2023 – present
Postdoctoral Fellow | Beckman Postdoctoral Fellow; University of California, Berkeley | 2019 – 2022
PhD in Chemistry | NSF Graduate Research Fellow; University of Colorado, Boulder | 2013 – 2018
B.S. in Physics | Goldwater Scholar & Undergraduate Research Fellow; University of Oregon | 2007 – 2011
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Maria Antonietta Loi studied physics at the University of Cagliari in Italy where she received the PhD in 2001. In the same year she joined the Linz Institute for Organic Solar cells, of the University of Linz, Austria as a postdoctoral fellow. Later she worked as researcher at the Institute for Nanostructured Materials of the Italian National Research Council in Bologna, Italy. In 2006 she became assistant professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials of the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She is now full professor in the same institution and chair of the Photophysics and OptoElectronics group.
She has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles on photophysics and optoelectronics of different types of materials.
In 2013 she has received an ERC Starting Grant and in 2022 and ERC Advanced Grant from the European Research Council. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of Applied Physics Letters and she is member of the international advisory board of several international journals in physics and materials physics. In 2018 she received the Physicaprijs from the Dutch physics association for her outstanding work on organic-inorganic hybrid materials. In 2020 she became fellow of the American Physical Society. In 2022 she was elected fellow of the Dutch Academy of Science (KNAW). In the same year she became fellow of the European Academy of Science (EURASC) and of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2025 she became Fellow of the Material Research Society.
Anna LoiudiceDa Wang is a Professor at the South China Academy of Advanced Optoelectronics, South China Normal University (SCNU). He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Utrecht University (UU) and subsequently worked as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the EMAT Electron Microscopy Center, University of Antwerp. He joined South China Normal University in 2022 and was selected as a recipient of the National Overseas Excellent Young Scientists Fund.
His research focuses on colloidal nanocrystal synthesis and self-assembly, structural and functional emergence in colloidal assemblies, and advanced transmission electron microscopy and computational reconstruction. His group develops quantitative 3D electron microscopy approaches to understand structure formation across multiple length scales in soft and nanoscale materials, with particular interests in confined self-assembly, anisotropic and chiral nanocrystals, and functional photonic and optoelectronic materials. His research has been published in Science, Nature Physics, Nature Chemistry, Nature Communications, and other leading journals.
He is also actively involved in international collaborations and is a founding member of the SCNU–UU International Joint Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics (ISoMAP), which integrates colloidal self-assembly, advanced electron microscopy, and theory and simulation.
Vanessa Wood is a professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at ETH Zurich, where she heads the Laboratory for Nanoelectronics. Before joining ETH in 2011, she was a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Professor Yet-Ming Chiang and Professor Craig Carter in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT, performing research on novel lithium-ion battery systems. She received her MSc and PhD from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. Her graduate work was done in the group of Professor Vladimir Bulović and focused on the development of optoelectronic devices containing colloidally synthesized quantum dots.