Semiconductor nanocrystals: from scaling laws to biological applications

Summary form only given, as follows. In recent years there have been significant advances in the preparation of semiconductor quantum dots by colloidal chemistry routes. CdSe and InAs are examples of materials which can be made as nanocrystals of high quality. These nanocrystals provide an excellent proving ground for examining size dependent scaling laws, and a few examples are described briefly. We have also found that these nanocrystals can play a useful role as luminescent probes for tagging biological molecules. Finally, efforts to use DNA to create complex spatial arrangements of nanocrystals are described.