Mauricio Terrones Maldonado es el Investigador más Joven en Recibir el TWAS Prize in Engineering Sciences

Aged 37, Mauricio Terrones is the youngest scientist ever to win a TWAS Prize. His research involves a unique interdisciplinary approach, combining the production of nanomaterials with electron microscopy techniques for analysis, and molecular simulations for predicting the stability and properties of nanostructures. In 1997, he described a novel self-assembly route for the production of matrices of aligned carbon nanotubes. This work laid the foundation for other researchers to produce aligned nanotube arrays.
In 1998 and 1999, he published the first descriptions of the synthesis and characterization of nitrogen-containing (or 'N-doped') carbon nanotubes, stating that these structures could be used as stable field emitters, sensors, protein immobilizers and polymer composite fillers. More recently, in 2005, he demonstrated a method for producing clean and highly crystalline double-walled carbon nanotubes. These and other materials, including nanowires, that Terrones has created in his laboratory, are likely to have a number of uses in nanoelectronics and in the fabrication of novel composite materials.
From the theoretical point of view, Terrones was the first to explain the sphericity of giant nested fullerenes (or buckyballs) based on the introduction of defects, a model now known as the Terrones model. He has also explained and observed the coalescence of carbon nanotubes in situ and predicted novel forms of metallic carbon.
Terrones has contributed to the establishment of nanoscience in Mexico, particularly by establishing the first Fullerene and Nanotube Laboratory in the country (at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM) and a nanoscience laboratory at the Instituto Potosino de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (IPICYT).
Among the honours Terrones has received are the National Prize for Chemistry (2000) for his contributions to the nanotechnology of layered materials. In 2001, he was elected a fellow of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and was awarded the Javed Husein Prize for Young Scientists and received an Albert Einstein Silver Medal from UNESCO. More recently, in 2004, he was presented with the Mexican Achiever Prize in Science and Technology by the Mexican magazines Expansión and Vuelo.

Mauricio Terrones, Instituto Potosino de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (IPICYT), San Luis Potosi, Mexico, won the prize in Engineering Sciences: for his outstanding contributions to the synthesis and characterization of novel carbon-based nano-materials.

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