When I started my academic career in 1981, clever electrochemists were already thinking about one of the core concepts of a research discipline that was yet to be invented. That research discipline became �nano science,� and the core concept was � how would electrochemistry be different if the size of an electrode approached molecular dimensions? Electrochemists were way ahead of the curve.So as an assistant professor, I wanted to make really tiny electrodes, but how? That led to the invention of the template-synthesis method, a versatile nanomaterials-synthesis strategy. In the 1980s, my group used the template method to make disk-shaped gold electrodes with diameters as small as 30 nm, and explored basic electrochemistry at such �nano electrodes.� In the 1990s my group used template synthesis to make nanostructured electrodes for Li-ion batteries. We are currently using template synthesis to make nanotube membranes that electrochemically count single protein molecules.

Electrochemistry and nano science

240th National Meeting (2010)

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