Trained as a chemist in Belarus, the University of Hamburg in Germany, and Columbia University in New York, Shevchenko has found better ways to make nanoparticles out of metallic compounds; she's produced lead telluride, cadmium selenide, and cobalt-platinum particles, among others. She has also developed a technique for assembling these nanoparticles into "superlattices," orderly crystal structures. Paul ­Alivisatos, a nanotech pioneer and interim director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, calls Shevchenko "the best grower of nanocrystals in the world today."

Mixing and matching these nanoscale building blocks offers endless possibilities for engineering structures with desired optical, electrical, and magnetic properties. A nanoparticle array of lead telluride and silver telluride, for example, is 100 times as conductive as arrays made of either particle alone. So far, Shevchenko has created dozens of new materials.