Alex Zettl

Alex Zettl
Institutions	Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
Alma mater	B.A. University of California, Berkeley, Ph.D. University of California, Los Angeles[3]
Known for	Nanoscale constructs

Alex Zettl is an American professor of experimental condensed-matter physics. His research involving the properties of novel materials has produced significant advances in the field.

Zettl received a B.A. degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978. He received a Ph.D. degree from University of California, Los Angeles in 1983. He joined the faculty of the UCB Physics Department in 1983. He is currently a Professor of Physics and a Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

He is part of a Nanotechnology group at UCB, the Center of Integrated Nanomechanical Systems He holds patents on the nanoradio, the nano mass sensor and other developments from this center's research.

The research of Zettl, Kenneth Jensen, Jeff Weldon and Henry Garcia culminated in a single nanotube mounted on the tip of a metal electrode. When an electric current is passed between that nanotube and another, shorter, nanotube mounted nearby, an FM radio-frequency signal can be sensed by the nanotube, and the signal is converted into an audible signal without any other circuitry required. This remarkable phenomenon was first described in the November 2007 issue of Nano Letters, a monthly publication of the American Chemical Society. In that same issue, independent University of California, Irvine, researchers Peter Burke and Chris Rutherglen announced a similar result - sensing and demodulating an AM radio-frequency signal, although their apparatus included conventional circuitry for antenna and amplification.

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