November 30, 2010

By Benjamin White

NQPI’s faculty shows a little more diversity as Noboru Takeuchi, a celebrated physicist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Ensenada, spends a year researching materials with the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Takeuchi, who likes to be called Noboru around the department, had visited Ohio University several times in the past and chose to spend his sabbatical in Athens because he liked the town and respected the school’s dedication to nanoscience.

His work is mostly theoretical, what he calls “computational material science.” The research he conducts mostly deals with the properties of various materials used in experimental nanoscience. When NQPI scientists perform experiments, sometimes they cannot explain what they get.

“Sometimes, when studying surfaces, you do not know the atomic structure, you don’t know where the atoms are,” he explained. “I am just trying to explain the experiments, by making models.”

Takeuchi came to work with professors Sergio Ulloa and Nancy Sandler, but says he collaborates with faculty at NQPI. Recently, he partnered with NQPI director Art Smith in researching the growth of manganese on gallium nitride surfaces, key materials in emerging nanotechnology.

He earned a doctorate degree in physics from Iowa State University, and in his previous sabbatical year, Takeuchi worked at Princeton University, a school he loved because of its small size and idyllic campus not unlike OU’s.

Takeuchi brought his family to live with him in Athens while he conducts his research, and during their free time he says they love to walk around Athens and travel. When he completes his year of research at OU, Takeuchi will return to UNAM.

Throughout Takeuchi’s time at UNAM, Ensenada, which is close to San Diego, he headed the Department of Nanostructures and published around 100 articles in international journals , work that has been cited close to 1,500 times. He also wrote a popular and award-winning children’s book in Mexico.

UNAM, based in Mexico City, claims the largest number of students in the Americas. It also has four small foreign campuses in the United States and Canada that focus of Spanish and Mexican culture.

OU’s Glidden Visiting Professorship award, established in 1988, helped fund Takeuchi’s stay at the Department of Physics and Astronomy along with two other visiting professors.