Zelalem Z. Urgessa

After I graduated in 2001 with bachelor degree in physics I started my carrier as a scientist at Alemaya University, Ethiopia, as a graduate assistant. I was the top scorer of my batch. Then I served the university for two years and later joined Addis Ababa University for MSc study in 2003. It is at this university that my journey of being a researcher started. The title of my MSc project was ‘junction between Aluminum and a polymer for diode application’ in which I scored ‘Excellent’ in 2005. After the graduation I went back to Alemaya University. I was there as a Lecturer for one year after which I joined African Institute for Mathematical Science (AIMS), Cape Town South Africa in 2007. At this institute, I studied courses on the cutting edge of mathematics, physics and computing fields which are relevant to research. Even though I have a chance to continue in this field I did not like to continue in theoretical fields. As a result I went back to Ethiopia and worked as a lecturer at Adama University for another one year. In 2009, I joined Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, South Africa as a PhD student.

As of today (2011), in conjunction with my supervisor and his entire research group at NMMU, we have synthesized different metallic oxide nanomaterials for the development of white light emitting diode. We have successfully grown different architectures of ZnO, MgO and ZnMgO nnanostructures (nanoparticles, nanowires, preferentially oriented nanorods, nanoflowers, ultrathin nanoflms on different substrates (like Si, glass, Al2O3 and Al foil) at a temperature as low as 35 °C. During the course of my PhD we have also synthesized nanoparticles as small as 5 nm in dimensions and, we have also successfully achieved rectifying diode between ZnO and silicon but emission of light for this device is still in progress.