Natalie Plank

Biography

Dr Natalie Plank is a Lecturer in Physics in the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Victoria University of Wellington.  Natalie completed a BSc (Hons) in Astrophysics at The University of Edinburgh before doing an MSc in Microelectronics.   She then completed her PhD on the functionalisation of carbon nanotubes for molecular electronics with Rebecca Cheung also at The University of Edinburgh. After arriving in New Zealand she has been a Foundation for Science Research and Technology (FRST) postdoctoral fellow and has established the cleanroom fabrication facility at Victoria.  Since becoming a MacDiarmid Institute she has been actively involved in the role of emerging scientists in New Zealand and was the founder and inaugural chair of MESA.

Research Interest

Natalie’s research interests are in the area of nanomaterial device fabrication and the characterisation of novel materials.  Her current work focuses on nanomaterial device platforms for sensing technology.  She is interested in carbon nanotubes and ZnO nanowires for nanowire transistor applications and in particular the ability to functionalise the nanomaterial channels with specific biomarkers.   Natalie’s core interests are in low cost fabrication techniques which allow for high throughput of devices whilst maintaining the particular material properties of the unique nanowire system.  This has been particularly important for device fabrication for both carbon nanotubes and ZnO nanowire transistors, where flexible electronics have huge potential. See the full publications list for more details.