Quantum dots are nanoscale particles made up of hundreds to
thousands of atoms—"fragments of semiconductors," in the
words of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory chemist Paul Alivisatos—that,
in many of their characteristics, behave like a single gigantic atom.
The remarkable optical and transport properties of quantum dots—particularly
the ease of customizing those properties by adjusting the size or
composition of the dots—assures them a fundamental role in the
emerging field of molecular electronics.
The list of most-cited papers on quantum dots is dominated by
research and reviews of the chemical, electronic, magnetic, and
optical properties of quantum dots and of their potential applications
in molecular electronics and in research. Topics that appear
frequently on the list include the synthesis and self-organization of
quantum dots; the application of quantum dots in laser diodes; the
organization of quantum dots into spatially defined arrays—known as
"super-lattices"—and even the use of DNA for guiding the
pattern of such arrays. Other subjects discussed include theories of
quantum confinement in quantum dots and quantum computation using
quantum dots.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on title-and author-supplied keywords for
Quantum Dots. The keywords used were as follows:
The baseline time span for this database
is 1992-2002. The resulting database contained 9,549 papers; 11,482 authors;
80 countries; 429 journals; and 1,856 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 25 papers, authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1992 - 2002 (weeks
1-26).
The top 25 papers are ranked according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution, and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds used to determine scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to total cites/paper were as follows:
56, 100, 75, and 50, respectively.
